KT Sees the Future in U-Cities KT, aims to create a number of ubiquitous (U) cities accommodating many high-tech linked apartment units. "We are planning to develop the U-City project successfully and ultimately make the project one of the nation's key IT industries," said Yun Haejong, chief and vice president of the U-City Group of KT, said, KT, the former state monopoly that was fully privatized in 2002, plans to create many ubiquitous cities in the country in order to expand its dominance of the domestic market. The rapid development of the communication environment offers the ubiquitous environment where people can make access to information at anywhere and anyplace. The object of information has also expanded from people in the past to people and things nowadays. In other words, an intelligent surveillance camera can record, collect and analyze necessary information instead of people. It is a kind of the ubiquitous environment, Yun explained. KT is planning the U-City project of building a host of super-connected and sophisticated apartments in Unjeong district in Paju City, Gyeonggi Province. Asked about the Busan City's U-City project, Yun said, "Harbor and traffic are very important things for Busan City. As Busan is a tourism city, the focus has been placed on construction of convention centers." The difficult thing is to show the concept of U-City and understand people about the U-City. In the past, about 100 million won was enough for mapping out a strategic plan for informatization. However, the Busan's U-City project required a total of 3 billion won ($3.1 million), which broke down into 1.2 billion won for Busan City and 1.8 billion won for KT. In case of the U-City project being carried out in Unjeong district in Paju City, we expect to attain investment results and samples of the project the minimum three or four years after completing the construction of the KT system. Noting that convergence is the most important thing in the U-City, Yun said that the convergence carrying strong solidarity is needed among the communication industry, the real estate industry and relevant government agencies for successful construction of the U-City. At present, about 80 KT staff members are working for the U-City project as a means of KT's investment in the future. On the practical effect of the U-City project, Yun said KT invested 1 billion won in the project of Daeyeon Primary School in Busan. All facilities of this school are controlled by the center and surveillance cameras are monitoring all activities of students, teachers and workers in the school. Namely, school lessons could be effectively communicated in two ways in the ubiquitous era. To conduct the U-City project for one class, 1 billion won was spent. Accordingly, several tens of billion won will be required for the project of all classes at the school, and several trillion won will be necessary for Busan City. If the necessary fund is mobilized, we can complete U-Korea based on such systems and it could greatly contribute to the development of Korea greatly. We can make Busan a world-famous harbor city that outpaces Hong Kong or Singapore by grafting IT technology onto the harbor-related sectors, including shipbuilding materials, Yun said. Commenting that the U-City project is drawing increasing interest and praise among Middle East countries, Yun said that KT is now seeking countries to activate the U-City project among oil producers enjoying huge benefits owing to a surge in international oil prices.