Korean Technology Prowess: 4G and Beyond

I frequently post and comment on Korean technology. One of South Korea's achievements has been IT and especially Internet infrastructure. This article notes a new breakthrough.... BTW while Korea readies for 4G and beyond, much of the US is still using 2G technologies. My iPhone, an amazing technology, is 2.7G !!!!! Some reasons for South Korea's IT prowess includes strong government support and mandates to provide new technology to the public. Korean's love of technology--techno lust-- also helps.


Korea Herald notes...
Korea has developed the world's fastest wireless networking technology - one which enables users to download a song file in less than a brink of an eye, while a peson is moving.

Named NoLA, the New Nomadic Local Area Wireless Access enables users to download data at 3.6 gigabits per second while they are moving at 3 kilometers per hour or slower, the state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute said yesterday.

That is fast enough to download a disc full of data in under two seconds. For subscribers of fixed-line broadband services using the optic LAN, it normally takes take about 52 seconds, if they get the maximum speed of 100 megabits per second.

The government hopes that the new technology will create a billion-dollar market, allowing ubiquitous computing at homes, offices and schools.

With NoLA, data transmission is more than three times faster than the international 4G benchmark for slow-moving users, Choi Mun-kee, head of the Daejeon-based institute, said after researchers successfully demonstrated the 3.6 gigabit data transmission.

Short for the fourth-generation wireless communications, a 4G network must support data transmission rates of up to 100 megabits per second for highly mobile users, and up to 1 gigabit for slow-moving users.

This demonstrates Korea's technological prowess in wireless communication technologies, Choi said.

When the 4G networking systems are commercialized after 2012, the high-speed NoLA can be applied to home networking and internet protocol TV or IPTV," Minister of Information and Communications Yoo Young-hwan said.

Countries around the world are fiercely competing to preempt the fourth-generation wireless communication market with an international IT policy body that is set to launch efforts to codify 4G service standards next year. Industry officials expect the process to be completed by 2010, with commercialization of the technology by 2012.

###