T (Mobile) For Two

Tue, Jul 25th 2006 11:29am — Derek Kerton

SK Telecom, a carrier that is trying to expand into international markets with forays into China, Vietnam, Taiwan, and the USA, has adopted a new catch-all brand name for their South Korean mobile telecom services. They've chosen "T" because "T" represents Telecom, Technology, Top and Trust according to the company" (subsc. req.) Um, okay, maybe "T" represents all that, but that's probably what Deutsche Telekom was thinking when they chose "T" as the umbrella brand for all of their international mobile services, which makes SKT a copycat. Hey, maybe SKT is just doing this to get back at T-Mobile USA, who has been accused of roadblocking Helio, SKT's MVNO in the USA. With 25 other letters to choose from (and 24 more in Hangul), can't we just get along?

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2006 @ 11:29am

South Korean company....stealing?
Wait a minute. You're saying that a South Korean company is stealing an idea from another company? That's completely unheard of!
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Derek Kerton (profile), 25 Jul 2006 @ 11:29am

The RAZR-cat?
Are you perchance referring to the RAZR knock-off: "Motorola announced today that it has reached agreement in a lawsuit filed in January against Korean manufacturer KBT Mobile Company, Ltd. for infringements of patents, trademarks and designs for the acclaimed Motorola RAZR mobile phone. With the settlement, KBT has agreed to discontinue all manufacturing and sales of RAZR look-alikes. Motorola had filed the lawsuit upon learning of KBT's attempts to sell RAZR look-alikes in Asia." - Telecoms Korea Or just in general? The Koreans are willing to make knock-offs, but I think that in general they do a pretty good job of creating new ideas, too. SK Telecom, for example, has an R&D department of over 500. I'd be surprised if Verizon Wireless had over 20. The Koreans actually aren't known for "stealing" ideas at all, in fact, we've often talked about how they have to constantly PAY for using foreign IP, and those payments are huge. ex: US$ 2.7 Billion to Qualcomm since 1997!! see: http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/4550 Are you possibly confusing South Korea with China?
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