Korea! The new leader of Digital World

I didnt realise how big Korea (South Korea ofcourse ... also known as Republic of Korea) was in digital world untill it was brought to my attention by a post on Forum Oxford. Our friend Tomi Ahonen has also co-authored a book on the same topic titled 'Digital Korea'. (Excerpts from the book here). Recently he spoke on CNN and the video which you may find informative is available here. You may notice several stats in this post which have been extracted from ITU's Digital Life publication.

Once considered an industrial backwater, Korea’s effort to reinvent itself as a high-tech powerhouse has seen the country notch up a broadband scorecard the rest of the world yearns to emulate. In 1995, Korea had less than one Internet connection per 100 inhabitants; today, this modest nation of 72 million people leads the world with a household broadband penetration of 89.4 percent.

Korea’s avid belief in technology as a potent driver of economic development has taken it to the No. 1 spot worldwide in terms of digital opportunity, according to a comprehensive survey by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency.

The ITU’s Digital Opportunity Index measures a wide range of indicators across four principal categories: coverage and affordability; access technology and device; infrastructure; and quality of service. Scoring 0.8 out of a possible perfect 1.0, Korea’s success in rolling out affordable high-speed services has helped position broadband as an everyday ubiquitous utility, much like power or water, rather than the premium service offered by operators in markets elsewhere. That’s in turn spurring new product and service innovation, as manufacturers and operators alike scramble to take advantage of higher speeds and more robust NGN-based network architectures.

Some Stats which shows the potential and the progress of technology in Korea:

• 
  Korea’s impressive literacy rate—at more than 98 percent it’s one of the highest in Asia—and exceptionally high level of school enrollment also means young Koreans are motivated and empowered to embrace the online world.
• Under the government’s commitment to what it terms "edutopia," 10,000 schools have been connected to the Internet and 330,000 teachers and 210,000 classrooms provided with PCs. At the same time, 50,000 high-achieving students from low-income families have been given free PCs with five-year broadband subscriptions.
• The country’s highly urbanized population has made it a natural for WiFi. There are now more than 10,000 hotspots, from bars to local beaches, and most operators bundle WiFi with broadband for a small additional charge.
• Triple-play services offering converged voice, data and video are already available or imminent from KT, Hanaro, Dacom, SK Telecom and some smaller service operators. One of the first to take the plunge, Hanaro says it already has 500,000 subscribers for its VoD HanaTV IPTV portal launched 12 months ago and is forecasting 1.4 million by the end of 2008.
• The rise of bandwidth-hungry, triple-play services is also prompting a large-scale migration from DSL to FTTx. With 74 percent of Korean households already passed by fiber, UK consultancy Point Topic notes that Korea’s DSL subscriber base is falling steadily, while FTTx subscribers grew by 1.2 million in the second half of 2006.
• 100% of South Korean internet access has migrated to broadband (the world, about 30%).
• It is the first country where all internet connections were upgraded to broadband and today 100 mbit/s broadband speeds are offered and gigabit speeds are planned.
• The first country to launch digital TV broadcasts to cellphones and cars, and where 100% ofcellphones sold are cameraphones and nearly three out of four cellphones is a high speed 3G phone.
• The country where over half pay using the cellphone, 43% of the nation maintains personal profilesand blogs, and 25% of the whole population have participated in videogaming inside the same game.
  90% of South Korean homes have broadband internet access. The world average is about 20%.
• 63% of South Koreans make payments using their cellphones, the world average is under 5%.
  

3G Subscribers: 60 Million +

• In Q4 2006, only one quarter of the net new mobile connections made in Europe was 3G enabled.
• In the first quarter of 2007, just over two in five connections were to a W-CDMA network, but the majority of the additional customers were still GSM.
• In the second quarter of 2007, for the first time, the majority of net additions were to W-CDMA services, with 8.0m of the 14.5m new connections made being 3G capable - a proportion of 55%.
• This is also the highest quarterly net additions figure for 3G recorded in Europe so far, exceeding the 7.3m registered in Q4 2006.
• It is also worth pointing out that a 3G net addition is often simply an existing GSM customer who is upgrading to a 3G handset: to say that 55% of net additions in the second quarter in Europe were 3G is not, therefore, to say that 55% of Europeans who signed up for a mobile service for the first time between March and June chose a 3G service.

More on this here

UMPC's with HSPA

The Ultra-Mobile PC (abbreviated UMPC), previously known by its codename Project Origami, is a specification for a small form factor tablet PC. It was developed as a joint development exercise by Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung, among others. Current UMPCs feature the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, or Linux operating system and low-voltage Intel Pentium or VIA C7-M processors in the 1 GHz range.

Back in April Samsung's released tiny SPH-P9000 Windows XP UMPC/mobile phone combination. Now according to reports, the SPH-P9200 is ready for market in Korea, with Samsung even having published the manual by mistake . The device now runs Windows XP Home edition on a 1GHz Via C7-M processor, has 512MB of RAM and a 30GB hard drive. As before, the 560g P9200 is very much a VoIP-centric device, with three methods for getting online - Wi-Fi, WiMax and HSDPA connectivity all come as standard - in addition to a SIM card slot for mobile phone connectivity. A five-inch screen, five-hour battery life, video-conferencing camera and slick white exterior complete a desirable little package, although there's no indication yet of whether Samsung will release it at closer to PDA prices or full-blown PC prices.

In other news, Intel announced plans to add the wide-area networking technology and support for 3G mobile technology as options for ultramobile PCs running Windows or Linux. The company also plans to add WiMax as an option to its Centrino notebook package next year.

More on UMPC here.

Shaky foundations of WiMAX

Dov Bar-Gera, WiMAX Telecom CEO, says "technical hold-ups
could delay his commercial launch of mobile WiMAX in Austria, Slovakia and Croatia".

I was under the impression that WiMAX was all ready to steal the march from LTE camp and the standard was much faster and simpler than 3G+ because it doesnt care about backward compatibility.

Earlier blog titled, "Will WiMAX compete with 3G+" did mention the shortcomings of WiMAX compared to 3G+ but this latest article from Telecommunications Magazine gives an interesting insight into the WiMAX world:

Last March, the GSM Association, a lobby group for GSM technology, published the results of a report commissioned from consultancy Arthur D. Little, which purported to shred the business case for mobile WiMAX in markets where 3G is already in service.

Ericsson, a confirmed WiMAX opponent, is equally dismissive. Mikael Halén, director of government and industry relations for the Swedish vendor, reckons HSPA, a high-speed version of 3G, will have 20 times as many subscribers as mobile WiMAX by 2011 (600 million vs. 30 million).

Australia’s incumbent operator Telstra has also snubbed WiMAX in recent weeks. In July—still smarting from the Australian government’s decision to award a sizable broadband contract to chief rival Optus—Telstra dismissed the capability of the WiMAX technology Optus plans to launch, arguing it is "unproven" and "vastly inferior" to its own HSDPA service.

None of this has deterred some big operators from announcing varying levels of commitment to WiMAX technology over the summer months. In the United States, for example, Sprint Nextel has upped the scale of its investment in a nationwide network to US$5 billion from about $3 billion. And in Europe, UK-based Vodafone has surprised some by joining the WiMAX Forum, the main lobby group for WiMAX

Led by Ericsson, 3G vendors are trying to encourage 3G operators to include the LTE (long-term evolution) standard in their development plans. Promising speeds to rival those of future WiMAX technology, LTE is being promoted as an evolution of 3G technology and, therefore, a more natural choice than mobile WiMAX for an existing 3G operator.

The trouble is, LTE has not yet been standardized. In the absence of defined technical specifications, its critics have been able to cast doubt on whether it has much in common with 3G at all. They point out it uses a different air interface called OFDMA—which, coincidentally, is also used by WiMAX—and so will not be able to reuse much 3G infrastructure, making it as costly a deployment option as mobile WiMAX. If operators are persuaded by this argument and already see the need to plan for a post-HSPA future, they are unlikely to wait for LTE.

But Ericsson sternly repudiates LTE criticisms. "We will have LTE modules that fit into existing 3G base stations," says Halén, who expected an LTE standard to be released in late September (nothing had been announced when Telecommunications went to press) and commercial deployments to appear in late 2009, just 18 months after Sprint Nextel aims to launch its first mobile WiMAX service. "For an existing 3G operator, it will be far more expensive to roll out WiMAX than LTE," he insists.

3G’s long commercial lead in some markets is the one challenge mobile WiMAX may face. More than 100 operators have launched the relatively immature HSPA in 63 countries. This appears to give 3G a major advantage over mobile WiMAX on economies of scale.

As a result, WiMAX operators may find it hard at launch to compete with 3G on price, especially in markets such as Austria, where intense competition between the country’s 3G providers has driven the monthly price of an HSPA service down to as little as €15 ($20). The challenge is recognized by WiMAX Telecom’s Bar-Gera, who is gunning ultimately for about 400,000 mobile WiMAX customers across Austria, Slovakia and Croatia.

"Unfortunately we will have to adapt to this price level," he says. "It will be difficult, but we will match it."

The GPON Standard

Towards the end of 2008, HSDPA+ will offer up to 28mbps download and 5,8mbps upload speeds, and in the second half of 2009, HSDPA++ will offer 42 mbps download and 12 mbps upload speeds. In the same year long-tern evolution (LTE) technology will push mobile data throughput to 100 mbps download and 50 mbps upload speeds and take the networks from 3G to 4G technology.

Another broadband technology in the pipeline is Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON), which will provide high-speed fibre cable to the home at 100 mbps over distances up to 20km, and will be available in two to three years time. Unfortunately with so many technologies in evolution it is difficult to kep track of all the new things happening in Telecom world but here is my attempt to explore these new technologies.

In April Freescale made the following press release:

The delivery of rich digital content to the home and small office via fiber takes a major step toward reality today with the introduction of the MSC7120 from Freescale Semiconductor – the industry’s first voice-enabled Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) SoC.

The multi-core MSC7120 integrates a Power Architecture™ CPU, a StarCore™ DSP and a data path engine to deliver a complete PON sub-system in a single device. It addresses the high data forwarding throughput requirements of several applications including the delivery of “triple play” (voice, video and data) broadband services to the home or small business.

GPON technology supports the convergence of IP over optical networks, offering connection speeds much higher than today’s DSL- or DOCSIS-based networks. It is a key enabler for bandwidth-hungry “triple play” applications such as HDTV and Video on Demand.

Analyst firm IDC forecasts that worldwide consumer and small business broadband subscriptions will grow to approximately 400M subscriptions by 2010.

As the number of broadband subscribers worldwide expands, GPON is recognized as an emerging solution to challenges that threaten to constrict delivery of rich content to end consumers over “last mile” infrastructure.

“Over the next few years, GPON technology will become a viable solution for increasing bandwidth in today's access networks, especially as carriers address the increasing demand for video as a key element of their ‘triple play’ services,” said Aileen Arcilla, senior research analyst at IDC.

Wikipedia has good introduction on PON standards:

Early work on efficient fiber to the home architectures was done in the 1990s by the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) working group, formed by major telecommunications service providers and system vendors. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) did further work, and has since standardized on two generations of PON. The older ITU-T G.983 standard is based on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and has therefore been referred to as APON (ATM PON). Further improvements to the original APON standard – as well as the gradual falling out of favor of ATM as a protocol – led to the full, final version of ITU-T G.983 being referred to more often as broadband PON, or BPON. A typical APON/BPON provides 622 megabits per second (Mbit/s) of downstream bandwidth and 155 Mbit/s of upstream traffic, although the standard accommodates higher rates.

The ITU-T G.984 (GPON) standard represents a boost in both the total bandwidth and bandwidth efficiency through the use of larger, variable-length packets. Again, the standards permit several choices of bit rate, but the industry has converged on 2,488 Mbits per second (Mbit/s) of downstream bandwidth, and 1,244 Mbit/s of upstream bandwidth. GPON Encapsulation Method (GEM) allows very efficient packaging of user traffic, with frame segmentation to allow for higher Quality of Service (QoS) for delay-sensitive traffic such as voice and video communications.

Some Applications of GPON can be found here.

LTE: Fujitsu achieves Downlink speed of 900 Mbps

DoCoMo and Fujitsu Laboratories have made progress in jointly developing prototype wireless base station equipment, and maximum downlink transmission speeds of approximately 900Mbps have now been achieved through the application of MIMO technology, a core technology for high-speed, high-volume wireless communications.

In November 2006 Fujitsu was selected by DoCoMo to develop and manufacture prototypes and commercial equipment for DoCoMo's "Super 3G" wireless base stations. Since then, DoCoMo and Fujitsu Laboratories have made good progress.

Since being selected to develop and manufacture DoCoMo's Super 3G wireless base station equipment, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Laboratories have worked with DoCoMo in developing the required technologies, and the companies have succeeded in developing a prototype wireless base station that achieves maximum downlink transmission speeds of approximately 900Mbps when using four antennas each (4x4 MIMO) for Super 3G base station transmission and mobile station reception as well as employing Fujitsu Laboratories' short-delay, high-speed error correction decoding technology.

Going forward, along with applying the results of development and evaluation work on MIMO and other Super 3G prototype technologies, Fujitsu will work to further refine the high-efficiency amplifiers and high-performance baseband processing technology it has developed for 3G wireless base station equipment in order to develop optimized commercial Super 3G wireless base station equipment that is compact, energy-efficient, economical, and highly scalable.

Fujitsu's prototype equipment will be exhibited at CEATEC Japan 2007 (2-6 Oct).

In other news, ABI Research has a new report that claims UMTS Long Term Evolution (LTE) will dominate the world’s mobile infrastructure markets after 2011. While LTE will encounter competition from other mobile broadband technologies, its supporters point to its flat architecture, low latency, and IP NGN (Next-Generation Network) capability to provide a range of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) services.

However LTE faces competition from other broadband wireless technologies and it will need to demonstrate clear technical and economic advantages to convince network operators. The mobile variant of WiMAX will start to appear in 2007 as the WiMAX Forum Certification program ramps up. The industry is also working on HSPA+, which could offer the same performance in a 5 MHz bandwidth. Without additional spectrum, operators could face a difficult choice.

WiMAX World Highlights

WiMAX is strating to be rolled out and this will definitely give it an advantage over LTE/UMB.

Motorola demoed its new WiMAX 802.16e mobile handoffs across a Sprint brand Xohm prototype network on a boat cruising downtown Chicago’s skyscraper-canyoned mid-town river. Not only was it good clean fun for the attendant pundits, punters and analysts, it was an impressive real-life demonstration of an important nascent technology that they could just as easily, and less expensively have unveiled in the controlled environs of the conference hall – boring as hell like usual – but they did not. Motorola and gang literally went the extra mile by also mounting the new WiMAX exhibition on a rolling Chicago public transit coach caroming about the city’s elevated metro tracks at 50 miles per hour, all the while delivering pretty seamless mobile apps like web browsing, VoIP, video streaming and Mobile TV.

Elsewhere, NextWave Broadband and Huawei Technologies also this week announced the interoperability testing of NextWave’s 802.16e mobile WiMAX chipsets and Huawei’s WiMAX infrastructure equipment in San Diego.

Telsima announced that the company’s Indian WiMAX Rollout was awarded the Best of WiMAX World USA 2007 Award for its StarMAX™ Solution in the WiMAX World Digital Cities Deployment category by the xchange magazine. The annual awards were presented in a late evening award ceremony on September 26 at the WiMAX World Conference held at Chicago on Sept. 25-27, and recognized leaders in the development and deployment of WiMAX technologies. In its second year, the awards received more than 80 submissions and Telsima pipped at the post several strong contenders to establish its leadership.

Telsima has established leadership position in WiMAX by enabling multi-city rollouts for Tier 1 operators, including, Reliance Communications and Tata-VSNL in India. The WiMAX rollouts, with thousands of base station sectors already shipped, support several advanced functionalities, like, MIMO & STC Antenna Diversity in support of NLOS deployments. The equipment installed in rollouts covers WiMAX Forum Certified™ Telsima BS StarMAX 4120, 6100 and 6400 and SS StarMAX 2140 and 2150.

Nortel set up one of the biggest booths at WiMax World on the show floor, and announced that it is working with the Choctaw Electric Cooperative and Pine Cellular to bring WiMax to southeastern Oklahoma and other rural areas where it is not economically feasible to build a wired network.

Another category of devices under development are ultra-mobile PCs, or mobile Internet devices, which are about the size of a VHS tape and function somewhere between a laptop and a mobile phone. Samsung displayed a "butterfly" device that has three folding sections, including two that form a full keyboard used with a small screen. Nokia has an ultra-mobile device expected to launch next year with Intel technology inside. It was in the dashboard of a Mini Cooper as an entertainment center.

Meanwhile the Koreans revealed world's first mobile WiMAX gaming device. Called the G100 and developed by Posbro, a subsidiary of Posdata (itself a subsidary of huge Korea steel maker Posco), it's just been revealed at the WiMAX World USA 2007 exhibition in Chicago.In terms of hardware specs, the G100 features a widescreen four-inch touchscreen that slides up to reveal four buttons which act as a D-pad, four face buttons and a mobile-style nub. There are also two shoulder buttons.As for network technology, the G100 supports mobile WiMAX – itself a cell phone-style high-speed technology equivalent to 3G and 4G mobile networks – as well as old fashioned Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This, Posbro says, will enable users to select the most appropriate network to make an internet connection.

Finally, Clearwire had a minimal presence. It didn't have a booth or splashy banners hung from the ceiling. It didn't host a cruise on the Chicago River to show off its service. But the conference did pause Thursday to hear a progress report from the Kirkland-based company.

Clearwire, founded by wireless entrepreneur Craig McCaw, has been in business four years and serves more than 40 markets in the U.S. and a handful of cities in Europe.

The company offers a precursor to WiMax technology. Users receive a modem — about the size of a hardback book — that can be used anywhere in a service territory, though not on the go, such as in a moving vehicle.

Clearwire's progress differs from the rest of the industry, which is waiting to build networks based on true mobile WiMax technology, expected to be available early next year. "The difference with Clearwire and other folks in the room is that while others are planning, we are in service today," Richardson said.

In his speech, Richardson offered a rare glimpse into operations of a company that usually prefers to stay out of the spotlight and say little. Here are a few points worth noting, gathered from his presentation and a one-on-one interview:

• Clearwire has about 300,000 subscribers. In August, 41 percent of its customers migrated from cable Internet access and 29 percent from DSL.
• The combined total is about 10 percent more than in the first quarter, when 59 percent of customers moved from DSL or cable.
• Clearwire is starting slowly to roll out mobile WiMax — which can be used on the go — into new markets, including Portland.
• Deployment of true mobile WiMax is going well in Portland, Richardson said. In April, Clearwire completed the first phase, involving 15 square miles. It's now focused on a beta network covering 145 square miles.
• In 2008, it expects to see laptops with embedded chipsets, as well as WiMax-enabled handsets.
• As for a WiMax business model, he said that will likely evolve as networks become available. "I believe the future is driven by the types of things you do at home today and want to do on the go, but we have to provide the connectivity to enable the business model."
• Richardson said a lot of the complexity in the business will be in the back end of Clearwire's network, where it handles billing. As a result, it bought IntraISP, of St. Louis, which will be a subsidiary and be able to sell billing solutions to other companies.

Verizon defects to LTE camp

3GPP is celebrating after Verizon Wireless announced that it would be using 3GPP backed LTE as its next generation wireless technology of choice. Of course the decision was influenced by its sister company Vodafone. Verizon Wireless is currently using CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev 0 and Rev A in its wireless network in the US, which means that Verizon's natural next technological step on the way to 4G should have been the adoption of UMB. However, this decision is not as simple as it seems, as shown by Verizon Wireless' selection of LTE over its CDMA counterpart.

Engadget reports:

Just a few months removed from rumors that Vodafone would offload its stake in Verizon Wireless altogether, the two networks have announced that they'll share a common selection for their fourth-generation data networks: Long-Term Evolution. Endorsed by the 3GPP as the official way to burn wireless rubber in the next few years, LTE is a progression of GSM's UMTS platform, making it an ironic choice for CDMA stalwart Verizon and a huge blow for the CDMA Development Group's competing UMB standard. It seems that the unusual move was influenced by the fact that the sister networks -- two of the world's largest -- should probably enjoy some semblance of technological synergy if they're going to carry on their blissful matrimony for the foreseeable future, with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg saying the company has been looking for "stability" in the relationship. Whatever the case, don't throw away that brand spanking new VX8550 or anything rash like that -- the companies aren't looking to roll anything out for another three or four years.

According to Ovum report:

This announcement is bad news for the UMB camp and its main backer, Qualcomm, as there is still no major CDMA operator that has committed to rolling out UMB technology. For example, the other largest CDMA operator in the US, Sprint Nextel, which also operates Rev 0 and Rev A CDMA networks nationwide embraced the mobile WiMAX technology for its next generation wireless network. At the same time, in Japan, KDDI which is one of the most significant CDMA operators worldwide has just announced the creation of a joint-venture to bid for a 2.5GHz licence in order to deploy a mobile WiMAX network.

Even if UMB is often marketed as benefiting from a time-to-market advantage compared to its 3GPP rival, UMB's future is not looking as bright as some vendors may have hoped for.

Verizon Wireless' move is significant for LTE, as it is a win in CDMA's birthplace and consequently strengthens its position as a potential alternative to UMB for other CDMA operators worldwide. One of the key selection criteria for any technology is its capability to generate economies of scale. Compared to UMB, LTE was already benefiting from an advantage in this domain as 3GPP technologies enjoy wider adoption worldwide and this, in addition to the fact that there's no strong commitment from major operators behind UMB, means that UMB's appeal is considerably weakened.

For Vodafone and Verizon Wireless, the decision to adopt a common technology for next generation wireless networks means that the companies have a common long-term view and therefore implies their relationship is long term. 'This LTE thing plays out probably over five to six years', said Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, thus reinforcing Vodafone's insistence that it is not looking to sell its equity investment in the US operator. Using a common platform for next generation wireless services will also fix the current roaming issues due to system incompatibility between CDMA and GSM that Verizon or Vodafone subscribers are experiencing today when travelling.

This announcement also comes as clarification from Vodafone, by reiterating Vodafone's commitment to LTE as its mainstream technology for next generation wireless networks - a position WiMAX believers challenged after Vodafone joined the WiMAX Forum and Arun Sarin's announcements at a couple of industry events. However, if LTE's backers want to keep the lead at Vodafone, they would be particularly well advised to take into account Sarin's comments regarding LTE time-to-market issues.

More on LTE at 3G4G website.

Random Statistics

While searching for some figures and numbers, came across loads of stats which i am posting hre for information only

• Skype currently having 220 million subscribers, they are already the third largest telecoms operator in the world according to subscriber count. They deliver 7 billion minutes of telecoms traffic (between Skype users) and 1.3 billion Skype out minutes. Skype has 4% of all international and long distance traffic worldwide
• Three UK delivered 14.2 million videos via SeeMeTV in 12 months, and also sold 6 million games in the past year. (Aug 2007)
• My Faves in USA, T-Mobile's new user interface/portal and digital community has 3 million subscribers in the USA (Aug 07)
• 3G penetration rates in Italy are already at 29%, Spain and UK are at about 18%. Even the USA is getting well along into 3G, with 13% having migrated to 3G. Between 15% and 29% of phone owners in these countries use picture messaging. Between 3% and 13% consume news on mobile phones. But so far only between 1.9% and 3.3% of phone owners consume mobile social networking services.(M:Metrics Aug 07)
• Admob has served 5 BILLION mobile ads in past 6 months (Sep 07)
• USA mobile phones users who consume VAS services (excluding SMS) 27.5% (IDC December 2006)
• UK phone users who access 11% email; 14% music; 15% ringing tones; 19% internet; 26% gaming; 35% MMS, 85% SMS. (Telephia January 2007)
• Japan 32% of phone users subscriber to games (Wireless World Forum 2006)
• UK (kids age 6-14) download 17% ringing tones; pictures 22%; games 24%; music 25%; and 29% access internet (Intuitive Media Dec 2006)
• USA 19% of internet users access by mobile; UK: 24% of internet users access by mobile (ComScore Metrics Oct 2006)
• USA 40% of mobile phone users have used mobile web services; 10% do so regularly (TNS March)
• Measured in revenues, globally, non-SMS revenues on mobile are worth 31.3 Billion dollars. Out of that, "browsing" delivers 1.9 billion dollars. It is only the 6th largest category according to Informa. Music is worth 8.8 B, infotainment 6.4 B, etc.
• Of Korea's 33m Internet users, 21.3m were fixed-only, 11.0m were fixed+mobile, and 0.5m were mobile-only (Feb 06)
• In CHina, 137m Internet users, of which 17m access via mobile, and 104m via broadband (Dec 06)
• while 29% of European Internet users regularly access the Internet from their mobile phones, only 19% of US users were accessing the web via their mobile devices. The highest mobile Web penetration was in Germany, Italy and the UK (at 34% each), followed by France and Spain, and the US. (eMarketer, Oct 06)
• 5.7m people in the UK used a mobile device to access the internet in January 2007, 19% of the 30m people who accessed the web from a PC. (comScore and Telephia)
• In Japan in June 2007, almost as many people accessed the internet via a mobile device there as through a work or home PC (the exact figures are 53.6 million and 53.7 million respectively). The same report reveals that Japanese mobile users spend on average 8.1 hours a month surfing on their phones.
• Mobile statistics gatherers M:Metrics has just released its latest survey of mobile internet use. And lo and behold, it has found that in both Europe and America, mobile men like to use their handsets to read about… Sports! Meanwhile, M:Metrics found that American ladies’ most popular mobile internet topic was the weather, while European women were more interested in news and entertainment gossip. Vaguely interestingly, while the total numbers of mobile net users in Europe and the US were fairly similar (18 million versus 22 million), the number of American females browsing the net on their mobiles was, proportionally, much higher. The most popular topic among US women (the weather) reached 3.5% of the audience, while in Europe the top item, the news, reached just 1.6%.

Google: New Operator on the Bloc

The mobile phone companies Vodafone and O2 will be forced to hand over large chunks of prime spectrum to their rivals as part of a plan unveiled by the telecoms regulator Ofcom to stimulate usage of wireless frequencies for mobile broadband services.

With new spectrum being available and no restriction on the technology to use Google is considering a move into the UK wireless market. Google is already planning to bid more than $4.6bn (£2.3bn) on spectrum in the US when it comes up for sale early next year and is rumoured to be working on its own mobile phone, nicknamed the Gphone, and a mobile payments service called GPay.

All four "legacy" operators have been lobbying for the regulator to remove restrictions on what services they can run over their old networks. They were not expecting Ofcom to propose a full-scale re-auction of part of the existing spectrum.

Orange, T-Mobile and 3 will be allowed to bid for the old Vodafone and O2 spectrum, but it is unclear whether they need the extra capacity. Vodafone has a network-sharing deal with Orange that should cover both companies' needs when the new spectrum is released in 2010, and T-Mobile and 3 are exploring a similar arrangement.

It was unclear last night whether the removal of a third of its 2G network capacity would harm O2, but the move is certainly a blow as that is the spectrum over which the iPhone will operate. The mobile phone company, owned by Spain's Telefonica, clinched the high-profile iPhone deal this week, seeing off competition from Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.