Intel Invests $20M in Korea's WiBro -- October Mobile Wonderland Launch

Intel Capital is investing US$20 million in WIBRO Infra Co., a joint venture with KT, Samsung and KBIC, to boost its wireless broadband rollout.


In addition to availability in the metropolitan areas of Seoul, Inchon and Suwon, KT will expand the WIBRO service to five new cities -- Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon and Ulsan -- and the expressways of Gyeongbu, Jungbu, Honam and Yeongdong.


Starting Oct. 1, KT will be offering a "Mobile Wonderland" -- an integrated offering combining 3G mobile (WCDMA), Wi-Fi) and high-speed wireless Internet (WIBRO) access. KT is also migrating its WIBRO network onto the standard of 10MHz WiMAX channel width that will allow interoperability and roaming with WiMAX networks worldwide. Coupled with better radio planning, this migration is expected to improve the quality of service by up to two times.


KT aims to achieve nationwide WiMAX coverage -- with its WIBRO service covering 82 cities an 85 percent of the Korean population -- by March 2011.


KT and Intel are also collaborating with major PC manufacturers to launch the first Intel Core and Intel Atom processor-based laptops and netbooks in Korea featuring Intel embedded WiMAX solutions, based on the Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 network adapter.
http://www.kt.com
http://www.intel.com