The South Korean government may have thrown a spanner in the works of Qualcomm’s plan to launch its MediaFLO mobile TV technology in the country.

Press reports today suggest that the Ministry of Information and Communication has rejected requests for a swathe of radio spectrum that would allow MediaFLO to be put into operation.

Reallocation of frequencies will not take place until the switch over from analogue to digital TV in 2010, the ministry said, although the country may begin licensing the spectrum as early as 2008 or 2009.

In South Korea Qualcomm is believed to have requested local operator KTF, in which it is a minority shareholder, to adopt its FLO (Forward Link Only) technology. However, given Korea’s current leaning towards DMB (Digital Media Broadcast) technology, there is some consideration over whether such a move would be feasible.

Korean broadcasting firms launched terrestrial digital mobile TV services based on the DMB standard late last year, much to the chagrin of the country’s mobile operators.

The operators are reluctant to push DMB-enabled handsets in the absence of a clear revenue model, with KTF expecting the offering to have a negative impact on its revenues because its customers will use the free TV service rather than its own data services.

“Public broadcast service means operators are out of the loop, so its value draining for them,” said Qualcomm MediaFLO senior director Omar Javaid. “But broadcast companies have a lot of political clout and could force operators to allow access to free public broadcasts.

“However, even if these broadcasts become a “must carry,” MediaFLO still has plenty of capacity for the provider’s own channels,” said Javaid.

Qualcomm is now understood to be looking at merging its MediaFlo technology with that of DMB in a combined offering.

Second placed Korean operator KTF and leading Japanese mobile provider NTT DoCoMo launched a joint committee today, with the intention of accelerating their cooperative developments in the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) space.

The Business & Technology Cooperation Committee will consist of six members – three from each company – and will serve as a channel for the operators to develop businesses ideas targeted at the WCDMA market, including international roaming prospects and joint development and procurement of handsets.

In December DoCoMo confirmed a comprehensive strategic alliance with KTF, including equity participation, under which DoCoMo invested approximately Won564.9bn (ВЈ320m) to acquire a 10 per cent stake in KTF.

KTF made an attractive proposition for DoCoMo, as the Korean operator operates a pilot WCDMA network as well as its CDMA networks. DoCoMo said that the nationwide deployment and early stabilization of KTF’s WCDMA network, using DoCoMo’s technical support, is key to achieving the objectives of the alliance.

Following tough conditions and high competition levels in the Japanese market, it seems DoCoMo has growth through international expansion very much on its agenda. The KTF deal marks DoCoMo’s largest overseas investment for some years now.