Homegrown Mobile Internet platform to overwhelm US rival

Mobile Internet, The,  April, 2005  

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South Korea's homegrown mobile Internet platform is expected to overwhelm its U.S. rival thanks to favorable policies of both the government and mobile carriers.

The nation's handset makers are required to use the locally-developed wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI) for their new models.

"Cell phone vendors can equip their gadgets with other platforms but they should include the open-source WIPI," said an official of the Ministry of Information and Communication.

The WIPI requirement, agreed between Korea and the United States last April, is likely to deal a blow to the binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW), the product of U.S.-based Qualcomm.

WIPI and BREW are so-called middle wares, which enable people to download music or games by accessing the Internet on the move through their cell phones.

Korea's three mobile carriers--SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom--have vowed to deploy WIPI-only terminals instead of using both WIPI and BREW.

"We already migrated a majority of famous BREW-based contents to WIPI-capable ones and will continue to carry out the job," a KTF spokesman said.

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