Abstract
The Korean telecom industry has been one of the fastest-growing industries in the global economy since the late 1990s. Once it underwent government-sanctioned liberalization, it quickly branched out into mobile telecom and Internet services and has not stopped to take a deep breath. As the first country in the world to offer commercial Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cellular service, Korea was able to jump right into the digital mobile market, enhancing its status as a leading manufacturer of CDMA equipment (ITU 1999: 31). And mobile hand phones quickly became one of the most promising export products of Korea, next to semiconductors and automobiles. Samsung, one of Korea’s major telecom manufacturers, made great strides against its global competitors and, by 2012, had become the largest company in the mobile handset market. Korean cellular manufacturers have been one of the industry’s best market performers, beating Nokia in overall cellular market share by 3.5 % and beating Apple in the smart phone market by 15.3 % (Agence France Presse, July 28, 2012; Chosun-Ilbo, December 19, 2012).
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- 1.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) is one of the digital access technologies that have been commercially developed in Korea and the United States. In CDMA technology, unique code is assigned to all conversations and signals for all calls and is spread across a broad frequency spectrum. CDMA is completely different from the old generation of analog transmission systems, claiming 8–15 times the capacity of analog.
- 2.
The first version of this research question and analysis was addressed and published in a journal article, “Liberalization as a Development Strategy: Network Governance in the Korean Mobile Telecom Market” (Jho 2007a), published in Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions.
- 3.
The institutional approach employed here is distinct from the works of economists. Economists tend to see institutions through the lens of the rational actor. For them, institutions reflect the possibilities, interests, and actions of multiple individual actors. However, the sources of institutions cannot be reduced to economic interests or understood exclusively in terms of economic interests (Zysman 1983). This book argues that the focus should be on the historically rooted national institutions that frame the choices of individuals.
- 4.
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) was called the Ministry of Communications (MOC) prior to 1994. This study will only use the abbreviation MIC, rather than MOC, to avoid any confusion.
- 5.
TDMA technology is one of the multiple-access methods in wireless communications. TDMA, developed in Europe, was the earliest form of digital radio technology. It assigns both different frequencies and time slots to each conversation on a wireless system. A multiple-access method in wireless communications defines how the radio spectrum is divided into channels and how channels are allocated to the many users of the system. There have been three major digital radio technologies developed: TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. Group Special Mobile (GSM) is a digital wireless standard that uses TDMA as its interface technology.
- 6.
This distinction builds on Johnson’s (1982) and Dore’s (1987) notions of a “regulatory state.” They recognize the distinction between the developmental state and the liberal-regulatory state as “plan rational” (organization-oriented systems) and “market rational” (market-oriented systems). The developmental state focuses on state intervention and the control of the state over the market, while the liberal-regulatory state emphasizes laissez-faire or minimal state intervention and the dominance of the market over politics.
- 7.
Regulatory reform refers to “changes that improve regulatory quality, that is, enhance the performance, cost-effectiveness, or legal quality of regulations and related government formalities” (OECD 1997a).
- 8.
W-CDMA (Wideband-CDMA) is likely to be the dominant technology for the third-generation technology standard embraced by many of the global TDMA-GSM carriers. W-CDMA is the most globally accepted technology, with end-user equipment variety and multimode capability. Other distinct advantages of W-CDMA are multiple simultaneous connections and flexible adaptation to varying requirements. As it can provide several simultaneous services to end users for multimedia services, W-CDMA provides greater capacity and improved spectrum efficiency relative to current second-generation technology.
- 9.
In the telecommunications sector, liberalization and deregulation generally accompany privatization because there must be a sale of public ownership in order to invite more competition into the market; telecommunications companies have been owned by the state.
- 10.
For a comprehensive review of economic literature on telecommunications, refer to Marcellus S. Snow (1988). “Telecommunications Literature: A Critical Review of the Economic, Technological and Public Policy Issues.” Telecommunications Policy 12(2): 153–183.
- 11.
This view differs from technological determinism in the sense that it emphasizes the role of conscious human behavior in the selection of technology and treats technological changes as only a facilitating condition, not a necessary condition.
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Jho, W. (2014). Introduction. In: Building Telecom Markets. The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7888-1_1
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