ASIA : It may be about five or more years into our future, but the prospect of next-generation, fast-as-lightening 4G services is already causing buzz and commercial interest among industry experts and operators.

Typically, wireless standards take roughly 10 years to move from developer drawing boards to commercial application, so it’s far from early to be thinking about the options made possible by 4G.

In keeping with its global leader-ship position, Samsung has taken a visionary stance on establishing 4G mobile communications initiatives.
Samsung is interested in building relationships across industry and academia to further the efforts toward 4G stan-dardization and development.

Samsung is also interested in investigating cost-effective practical applications of 4G. As a beginning step toward nurturing a 4G standard, Samsung has been encouraging relationships among a wide range of interested commercial and academic partners.

As a result, Samsung created the premiere Samsung International 4G
Forum. Last September, the company invited a stellar group of worldwide wireless experts to a two-day session on Jeju Island to take a look into the 4G crystal ball.

The 4G Forum is the largest manufacturer-organized international conference ever held for 4G, with participants from six continents, including other manufacturers as well as service providers. The gathering included a total of 115 guests.

The year being targeted for a 4G trial to kick off in the Far East is 2007. Why 4G ? What can 4G do and why are Samsung and other forward thinkers looking into it? Different manufacturers and various carriers are concerned with different aspects of 4G, such as spectrum optimization, network capacity or faster data rates. But
overall, future multimedia-based services forces and move forward with techno-logical advances?

• What are the future business models for the wireless industry?
Two days of future
On the jam-packed, first day of the Samsung International 4G Forum, Samsung President Ki-Tae Lee welcomed the distinguished guests in opening remarks that described the historic alliance represented by the gathering and the “upcoming era of ubiquitous computing simply require higher data rates than 3G can provide.

While current 3G services are work-ing to enable transactional wireless com-munications like location-based services, wireless shopping, personal services, email and multimedia data transfer, these are at much lower speeds compared to the 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps of 4G.

As demand builds for high-quality, streaming video and audio, only 4G systems will be able to accommodate growing consumer
and business expectations. AT&T, Sprint and more. The high-level
workshops and sessions delved into such thorny 4G issues as global trends and standards, Samsung’s 4G Air Interface Systems, operator perspectives of the era beyond 3G, and, of course, new and emerging technologies.

The presentation of “Samsung’s 4G Vision” included the company’s emphasis on digital convergence and user services as well as its research findings on 4G Radio. Samsung also pre-sented work on global standards, cost

President Lee also talked about the opportunity offered by the alliance to advance the efforts toward developing 4G technology, standardization and 4G marketing and promotion, already being
pioneered by Samsung.

Shortly thereafter, Nokia’s Senior Vice President Tero Ojanperä also welcomed the participants. Luminaries at the Forum included a roster of university professors from Korean, Canadian, Chinese, American, UK and Scandinavian tech centers and universities, as well as executives and R&D exerts from such companies as
Alcatel, NTTDoCoMo, China Mobile, Qualcomm, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Nextel, Consumer demands for “Anytime, Anywhere, Anything” communications are another driving force for 4G.

Seamless and accelerated mobile access that is cross-platform and cross-network is certainly the goal over the next few years—and 4G will help.

Significant questions for wireless technology’s future, posed by the
Wireless World Research Forum, are:
• Which demands will the wireless industry address in the future?
• How can wireless communication become seamless and available to consumers, computers and wireless devices?
• Is there a consistent way to combine and coverage issues in a talk called “Beyond IMT-2000.” Samsung present-ed the need for progress on global stan-dardization and technology needs. The
Forum group had time in the evening of the first day for photo sessions, a cock-tail reception and dinner.

The key topic at this first Forum was Air Interface Protocol. Next year, one of the main topics is expected to be Core Network protocols. At the close of the second, vision-ary day, Samsung Senior Vice President Woon-Sub Kim wrapped up the exciting Forum. Subsequent 4G Forums are likely to alternate between Finland and Korea.

4Gcouk Limited, 54 Brunel Avenue, Newport UK NP10 ODN.