KTF, a Korean telecom operator, launched the commercial HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) service on June 30 in 50 cities around the nation, including the Seoul Metropolitan region and six metropolitan cities. With the launching of HSDPA service, the company said that about 80 percent of the nation's population is now able to benefit from the new service. KTF said that, in addition to the two new models of mobile phones that have been placed on the market, it will display a new brand dubbed "World Phone View" to embrace a new level of HSDPA service that centers on videos and global roaming. The company said that the new brand can be used in any parts of the world for identical telecom services as in Korea. The newly commercialized HSDPA service, KTF added, will be a technology of tomorrow and play a predominant role in the world's mobile telecom market. Due to the enormous size of the global market, the company explains, the HSDPA service will be available at a more reasonable price than today's with a variety of services and mobile phones. Moreover, KTF expects HSDPA will become the main network for the company's next generation services since it is a more evolved form of technology than the third generation WCDMA, allowing the use of not only video phones but also the wireless Internet at higher speeds and quality in any place around the world. Even though the mobile phones put on the market alongside the HSDPA service support only the maximum downloading speed of 1.8Mbps, the wireless Internet, the company forecasts, will be dramatically improved to accommodate 7.2Mbps by 2007. Moreover, the company noted that since the uploading speed will be increased from 384Kbps to 5.8Mbps in the latter half of 2007, a wide variety of applied services can be developed in addition to two-way data communications that enables the sharing of high-capacity files among users. In the meantime, KTF said that it plans to expand the HSDPA service to all the 84 cities around the nation to cover 91% of the nation's population, thereby allowing almost all the customers in the nation to enjoy the HSDPA service by the year's end. Furthermore, the company said that as global roaming through HSDPA is possible with a handset, the virtual coverage of HSDPA can be extended to cover almost all the nations around the world that have adopted HSDPA or GSM technologies. According to a timetable set by KTF, the HSDPA coverage will be extended to 25 countries in Asia and Europe by the end of this year. This includes Japan, Singapore, and Australia where global roaming between HSDPA networks is possible. As for GSM serviced regions where HSDPA is not yet available, the company plans to give shape to GSM automatic roaming by the end of this year so that customers in more than 90 countries can freely use audio and video services in addition to SMS, MMS and wireless data. In relation to this, KTF said that the company is in the midst of developing specialized services for overseas users by expanding the regions under the HSDPA global roaming in cooperation with the Asia Pacific Mobile Alliance inaugurated in April this year and strategic tie-ups with telecom operators such as NTT DoCoMo of Japan. As the two new models of HSDPA mobile phones introduced to the market recently by Samsung (SPH-W2100) and LG Electronics (LG-KH1000) are accessible through both the HSDPA and CDMA networks, KTF said CDMA service can be provided without any interruptions in areas not covered by HSDPA. The SPH-W2100 above all is operable for the terrestrial DMB and other diverse functions despite its slim design with a thickness of 21.1mm that is about the same as other mobile phones already on the market. In the case of LG-KH1000, the duo-slide model which has adopted the Bluetooth technology is capable of freely tapping video phone and chatting services. In the meantime, KTF plans to expand the number of models and types of services it provides to its customers in order to invigorate the HSDPA market. To this end, the company has already taken preparatory steps to introduce by the end of this year two or three additional standard type mobile phones along with specialty phones for tele-monitoring and data cards usable in any place around the world. Cho Young-chu, president and CEO of KTF, explains, "The launching of HSDPA service is truly meaningful. It not only provides multimedia services of high-quality at high speeds in a stylish manner, but also offers a momentum for the domestic competition among mobile operators to be elevated one step higher and stay in a normal track, allowing latecomers in the mobile market to compete under equal terms using same frequencies." Under such circumstances, Cho said that KTF is striving to launch unrivaled services at right times. These include videobased services such as video mail boxes and other extras currently on their way for development alongside high-definition VODs and high-quality MMS that have utilized the traits of high-speed data transmissions. In addition, SVD and global roaming, too, are said to be progressing smoothly as scheduled. Explaining that the first impression of a person is important in personal encounters among people, Cho added, "I think it very worthwhile to newly unveil the HSDPA service to our customers. In order to imprint KTF's image as the best HSDPA provider, I will personally examine any progress made in all fields of business, from the laying down of a network to its operations, services, and marketing and find out what the problems are and make remedies on them."