Korea offers a glimpse into the WiMax future

Clearwire’s WiMax network may be all about bulk Internet access today, but if what’s happening in Korea is any indication, a multitude of new applications may be in the pipeline. South Korea’s KT is has several years on Clearwire in running its WiMax network — which it deployed as WiBro in 2006 before the final mobile WiMax standard emerged. Consequently its WiMax business models have evolved far beyond monthly data subscriptions.

Perhaps the most intriguing, and oddest, service KT has in its repertoire is skin-tone consulting. (I’m not making this up.). Apparently there are a plethora of beauty parlors and day spas in Seoul, but a dearth of shops that can afford their own make-up and skin consultants. A specialty device linked wirelessly to the WiMax network, however, can spectrally measure a customer’s skin tones and facial measurements and transmit that data to a remote consultant, who can then instantly advise that shop’s proprietors on what skin treatments or embellishments to provide to the customer.

That isn’t the only machine-to-machine app KT is enabling with WiMax. It’s launched a wireless credit card authorization and payment service called CheckLine, which hooks card readers directly to credit providers over the WiMax network, creating a mobile payment solution that can be used in a shop or on the road. Rather than charge CheckLine customers a standard data subscription plan, the service is tied to the application, allowing up to 3 million authorizations a month for 10,000 won (about $8.67).

KT has used WiMax to create intra-campus mobile networks for universities and to power Web-surfing terminals on buses that charge by 10-minute intervals. It’s even managed to light up Seoul’s extensive subway tunnels with mobile broadband. And on top of all this, it offers the usual laptop card plans and a hybrid 3G/4G service on handsets.

But while the applications are spilling over in KT’s network, the customers are not. Since the networks launch in 2006, KT and fellow Korean WiMax operator SK Telecom have attracted only 250,000 paying subscribers combined. That might sound ominous for Clearwire and other WiMax operators, but Korea has gotten off to a relatively sluggish start in deploying their networks. Both KT and SK have Seoul and the surrounding suburbs covered, but little else. Admittedly Seoul accounts for a quarter of the country’s population, but until recently neither operator seemed ready to fully commit to the technology. That reluctance probably can be explained by the two operators’ positions as the largest 3G operators in Korea. Clearwire will likely be much more motivated, considering it has no 3G customer base to cannibalize.

E-mail me at kevin.fitchard@penton.com.