14 DAY TRIAL // European operators have taken a large amount of everyone's attention over the iPhone's future support for a release on the market. They are infirming rumors and keeping silent on the entire matter, although one carrier had the courage to confirm it's currently negotiating with Apple for an iPhone release.
KT Freetel has high chances of becoming the operator to support the handset's release on the South Korean market. Their confidence in announcing the fact that Apple is currently discussing this possibility with them has not been seen at all in other carriers that are now keeping a secrecy policy. The publicity that this uncertainty has to bring is pretty high, which gives good reason for them wanting to keep it up for as long as possible.
KT Freetel controls about a third of South Korea's mobile service market and now looks to leapfrog market leader SK Telecom. In order to make this happen, they rely on their high-speed downlink packet access, or HSDPA, services, which have been launched in early March, this year.
In order to win a market share as big as possible on the South Korean market, KT Freetel is also discussing with several other leading mobile phone producers, including Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. At this time, Motorola is the only foreign vendor on this market and brings its phones here with the help of SK Telecom.
South Korea has a lot of time left to wait until the iPhone will hit their market too, no matte which will be the carrier to support it then. The device will be released in Asia only starting with next year. Considering the fact that Apple now looks to make the best possible deals for the iPhone's close European release, there are high chances that they will head their attention towards other continents only later.