SK Telecom To Launch 3G W-CDMA in 2003

South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom said on Thursday it would launch a third-generation service based on W-CDMA technology, favoured by European carriers, in the fourth quarter of next year.

SK, which said early this year it might delay its 3G mobile service until 2004, citing a lack of subscriber interest in advanced services, said the limited bandwidth for its current services would hamper growth in demand for data services.

"We see a shortage of frequency (spectrum for data services) in 2004," SK's vice president Cho Sung-hae told investors during an investor relations session organised by Lehman Brothers.

NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's biggest mobile carrier, started the world's first 3G wireless service in October 2002 using wideband code division multiple access or W-CDMA technology.

But a combination of wary capital markets and technological challenges have been delaying the 3G roll-outs of Britain's Vodafone Group Plc and other European carriers until after mid-2003.

SK officials said the firm was reviewing four local and foreign equipment vendors to provide 3G network equipment and would announce successful bidders in the first quarter.

The company did not identify the bidders. It also declined to unveil planned capital expenditure for the roll-out of its 3G network.

The 3G technology promises to provide access to the Internet, music downloads and streaming video at five to 25 times the speed of current "2G" mobile networks.

SK and KT ICOM, a 3G unit of biggest telephone company KT Corp, won licences in late 2000 to launch commercial 3G services using W-CDMA technology.

LG Telecom Ltd, Korea's smallest mobile service operator, also won a licence to operate a 3G mobile service based on cdma2000 technology, developed by U.S. Qualcomm Inc

SK said it would not launch an 1x EV-DV (Evolution Data and Voice) service, an advanced cdma2000-based mobile service which is being adopted by its domestic carriers.

"We don't see much difference between EV-DV and W-CDMA in terms data transmission speeds and content to offer," said Chang Hyuk-joon, an official at SK's investor relations team.

Shares of SK finished up one percent at 243,500 won on Thursday in line with a 1.2 percent rise in the broader market