SK Telecom announced on October 6th that the company has formed the ‘Ubinet’ consortium to implement a broadband combined network (BcN) pilot project, led by the Ministry of Information and Communication. SK Telecom has signed an MOU with the 31 consortium members.
This pilot project is designed to offer BcN pilot services, develop ‘Killer’ applications for commercial services, and establish BcN technology and service standardization from October 2004 to the end of 2005. Total development cost for the project is to be 18 billion Korean won. An SK Telecom official revealed that pilot services will be provided to a total of 600 households by the ‘Ubinet’ consortium before the end of the year 2005. This will involve 300 households in the Seoul area, and 300 households in the metropolitan region.
The ‘Ubinet’ consortium consists of 31 entities in 6 groups:
- SK Telecom and Hanaro Telecomm are in the telecom group.
- Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Herit, Genesis Systems, Mirinet, I-Bit, Telcoware, Wooksung Electronics, C&S Technology, Samsoo Telecommunications, and U-Angel are in the telecom equipment group
- Taihan Electric Wire, Hurim Interactive, Korea Fristec, Secure Soft, nTels, Etosys, Idctech, SK C&C, and SK Engineering & Construction are in the solution group
- MBN TV, Korea Digital Satellite Broadcasting (Skylife), Chungcheong Media Broadcasting, and SK Communications are in the content group.
- Busan Metropolitan City and Daejeon Metropolitan City are in the government institution group
- Information and Communications University, Seoul National University, and Inha University are in the university group.
‘Ubinet’ consortium will develop converged services of telecommunications and broadcasting through close cooperative ties with TU Media that is currently implementing a satellite DMB service business.
A joint ceremony for the initiation of the ‘Ubinet’ consortium took place in SK Telecom’s head office. The participants represented all 31 of the consortium members. This included Sung Won Seo, vice-president of SK Telecom, Seung Seok Lee, vice-president of Hanaro Telecomm, Hyun Tak Cho, vice-president of Samsung Electronics, and Hyun Park, vice-president of LG Electronics, among others.