US, Korea, at odds over Wi-Fi
p2pnet.net News:- South Korea and the US say they’ve staved off a confrontation over Wi-Fi Internet platform standardization.
However, "the road to the eventual settlement is likely to be long and bumpy since the issue involves so many factors," says a Korea Times story here.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) said on Friday that through bilateral trade talks, which took place Feb. 25~26, the two nations reached an agreement to map out ways to satisfy both sides of the wireless platform standoff," it states, continuing that South Korea and the US, "were on the verge of a collision on the issue".
US delegates insisted Korea should allow competition in the market instead of designating wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI), a homegrown open-source technology, as a single national standard, says the Times story.
"Such a stance reflects the demands of Qualcomm, the California-based mobile chipmaker, which developed its own platform called binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) and commercialized it. Qualcomm accused the Korean government of trying to create trade barriers by opting for a single standard in the marketplace, where it has already deployed the BREW technology through KTF, Korea’s second-largest mobile carrier, since 2002."
However, Information-Communication Minister Chin Dae-je confirmed Korea’s commitment to WIPI as the nation’s single wireless communication standard on the same day as the MOFAT press conference.
"… Korea will adopt WIPI as a national standard and Qualcomm should develop a WIPI-enabled product," says the Korea Times.
March 3rd, 2004 at 11:21 pm
this story is clearly not about WiFi. It has to do with mobile phone wireless data standards.
March 3rd, 2004 at 11:27 pm
this article is clearly not about WiFi. it’s about the standards battle for wireless data on mobile phones.
March 4th, 2004 at 2:39 am
WIPI from Korea has nothing to do with WiFi, but in fact is related ONLY to data platforms on mobile phones. Unfortunately a number of other blogs are picking up this P2PNet story and reproducing it in all it’s incorrectness. So here’s the real scoop on WIPI: WIPI (Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability) is a very attractive platform for mobile phone carriers. Similar to Qualcomm’s BREW, it allows carriers to abstract the data services (ringtones, games, video, photos, mobile Internet, etc.) from the phone’s proprietary OS, and instead treat all vendor’s WIPI phones as a homogeneous platform (the old ‘write once, run anywhere concept’). WIPI is also an open standard, not controlled by any one company, which is attractive to Korean wireless carriers who want to minimize royalty payments, many of which go to Qualcomm. Naturally, this aggravated Qualcomm, since a government requirement for WIPI would force BREW out of the market.
March 4th, 2004 at 2:41 am
WIPI from Korea has nothing to do with WiFi, but in fact is related ONLY to data platforms on mobile phones. Unfortunately a number of other blogs are picking up this P2PNet story and reproducing it in all it’s incorrectness. So here’s the real scoop on WIPI: WIPI (Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability) is a very attractive platform for mobile phone carriers. Similar to Qualcomm’s BREW, it allows carriers to abstract the data services (ringtones, games, video, photos, mobile Internet, etc.) from the phone’s proprietary OS, and instead treat all vendor’s WIPI phones as a homogeneous platform (the old ‘write once, run anywhere concept’). WIPI is also an open standard, not controlled by any one company, which is attractive to Korean wireless carriers who want to minimize royalty payments, many of which go to Qualcomm. Naturally, this aggravated Qualcomm, since a government requirement for WIPI would force BREW out of the market.
Derek Kerton, http://www.kerton.com