KT ICOM Starts 3G Demos in Time for Football World Cup

The smart-card firm, Gemplus and South Korea's KT ICOM have said that they will be providing W-CDMA trial services during the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan including video phone and video-on-demand capabilities. Hundreds of people including World Cup Officials will trial these introductory services at the World Cup Plaza located in five major stadiums and downtown Seoul and Busan during the World Cup period.

Customers will be able to make standard voice calls as well as videophone calls, while benefiting from new multimedia-based services such as video-on-demand by watching games and recalling football scores via KT ICOM handsets.

KT ICOM, one of the official telecommunications partners of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan through KT Corp, selected Gemplus to provide an entire platform of solutions covering the supply of USIM cards (GemXplore 3G), applet development and Over-The-Air (OTA) delivery system. In this way, it can manage the end-user's relationship with different content providers, while guaranteeing the security of downloads on behalf of the operator.

Mr. Byoungcheol Choi, director for M-Commerce Team at KT ICOM commented "This project is a major step for KT ICOM. Not only is it 3G but also it is the first time that SIM cards have been widely deployed in a Korean telecom network. Gemplus has not only helped us to understand the value and opportunities of the USIM, but has provided us with the much-needed support in order for us to meet our strict World Cup deadline."'"

Posted to the site on 3rd June 2002