South Korea-based IT services provider POSDATA (
News -
Alert) is teaming up with set top box maker Celrun and digital TV platform provider Acanettv to launch a new IPTV
service in the U.S. this September. The new service will launch in California and will target Asians who watch Korean television shows and movies.
POSDATA will establish a local corporation in Los Angeles to run the new IPTV (
News -
Alert) business. The corporation will be a joint venture with Celrun and Acanettv. POSDATA will be a majority shareholder. The name of the new company and brand are yet to be announced.
There are roughly 2.2 million Koreans in 700,000 households in the U.S. — many of them in California. POSDATA hopes to capitalize on this market with this exclusive new IPTV service. The company is ready to make an initial investment of 10 billion won ($10 million) and says it already has the contracts in place with the content providers.
POSDATA says it plans to eventually expand the network to other areas of the U.S. and offer IPTV services to the mainstream.
Company officials claim they have studied the market and have concluded that the time is right to launch a new IPTV service for the Asian population in the U.S. The customer base, they say, is frustrated with cable companies that don’t offer Korean programming on an on-demand basis. Furthermore, the “video lending business” has reached its “limitations” in recent years, officials noted.
Initially, the IPTV service will deliver content such as television dramas, entertainment programs, and movies. Later, value-added services, including television shopping malls, Internet telephony (VoIP
), online education, karaoke, and games will be added.
POSDATA says it will eventually deliver its IPTV service via Mobile WiMAX
.
The company has been developing and refining its own brand of Mobile WiMAX (
News -
Alert) over the past several years.
POSDATA is an Internet and network service subsidiary of Korea’s largest steel maker POSCO. Its broad portfolio of solutions, including an advanced mobile WiMAX
solution, facilitates the “ubiquitous” network — that is, the network that can be accessed from anywhere.
The company also announced recently that its Flyvo base station and USB modem have received the Mobile WiMAX Forum’s Certified Seal of Approval. The announcement was made at the press conference hosted by the WiMAX Forum during “WiMAX Forum Congress Asia 2008” in Singapore.
Patrick Barnard is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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