U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said it reached an agreement wit...

could have shut the U.S. telecom companies out of an important part of Korea’s market. “American telecommunications companies can now be assured of unimpeded access to this important market,” said USTR’s Robert Zoellick. The dispute goes back more than 2 years, when the Korean govt. launched development of the WIPI standard -- a technology that competes with several other established software platforms. WIPI was originally envisioned as the exclusive technology for downloading Internet content to cellphones in Korea. It threatened to shut out other competing systems, including a U.S. system that already had more than 7 million subscribers in the country and was expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 5 years. The resolution follows bilateral consultations and meetings between senior officials in Washington and Seoul that have intensified the past several months, the USTR said. “It’s wrong for countries to mandate exclusive standards that have the effect of shutting us out,” Zoellick said: “The United States will continue to aggressively seek resolution of this and other similar issues throughout Asia and the world.” The industry applauded the decision, saying it would provide Korean wireless applications developers, manufacturers and operators with flexibility to introduce various wireless Internet technologies into their service offerings. Qualcomm Chmn. Mark Jacobs said “freedom for each operator to select a preferred wireless Internet platform… will maintain a high level of competition and creativity in the South Korean wireless market.” He said the decision would benefit “all parties in the mobile applications marketplace. Subscribers of BREW-enabled services, for example, can continue to benefit to delivering their locally developed BREW-based applications to the worldwide marketplace.” The deal comes shortly after the Chinese govt. last week decided not to impose the unique Chinese wireless LAN encryption standard (WAPI), which was set to go into effect June 1. China also agreed to work with international standard-setting bodies on wireless encryption and to adopt a policy of technology neutrality for licensing 3G services. The USTR said it hoped the agreements reached would provide momentum for resolution of Korea’s plan to mandate an exclusive domestic transmission standard for a new service -- portable broadband wireless Internet. “Telecom carriers should have maximum flexibility in the technology they choose, unencumbered by government interference,” the USTR said.