After talks with the ruling party, we are going to allow the 3G operator to pay its license fees in instalments and with no interest charged if the bidders want, the Information and Communication Ministry said in a statement.
Local press also carried stories saying that Minister Yang Seung-taik had ventured the possibility of operators paying for the third generation licenses over a 15-year period.
In December the Korean government awarded two 3G licenses based on W-CDMA technology, the favourite of European mobile firms, state led Korea Telecom and SK Telecom’
The outstanding license using Qualcomm’s cdma2000 technology used by most of the country’s
equipment within mobile phones and equipment, sometime in the first half of 2001.
There has been a delay of the allocation of a cdma2000 3G-service provider twice to a lack of interest from companies, unconvinced of the technology’s viability on a global scale.
LG Telecom and Hanaro Telecom, both units of the LG Group have said they could enter the 3G bid if the government relaxed conditions, including a cut in cdma2000 license fees estimated at 1.15 trillion won ($853.6 million).
