Evolution of Korea’s mobile technologies: A historical approach

This paper is to document the evolution of Korea’s mobile technologies. By using a historical approach, which is useful to determine the causes behind the changing processes of new technology, we examine the presmartphone era, focusing on the growth of mobile technologies before the successful launch of Korea’s smartphones in 2009. We divide the presmartphone era into four major periods, including the early mobile technologies period (between the 1980s and 1996), the CDMA period (between 1996 and the early 2000s), the Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI) period (2001–2007), and the iPhone period (between 2007 and 2009) before the introduction of locally made smartphones. We investigate multiple causes that led to the rise of the smartphone, both technologies and systems, surrounding the development of the early smartphones by analyzing not only power relations between several major players, such as the government, corporations, and global forces, but also the crucial role of mobile users as customers. We also map out the relationship between socioeconomic transitions and accompanying changes in mobile technologies, which are becoming part of contemporary smartphone technologies