• Business Week, Tuesday, December 11, 2007 1 PM

Mobile technology in Asia is several years ahead of the U.S. market. Sensing an opportunity, Asian telecom and technology firms are stepping in, believing that mobile data services is about to explode in the U.S. just as it has in places like Japan, China and South Korea.

Among them are Japan-based carriers DoCoMo and KDDI. The former has a painful past in the U.S. market. Three years ago, DoCoMo was forced to sell its 16 percent stake in AT&T Wireless for a loss of $3.3 billion. Nevertheless, the Japanese telecom believes that the time is right to strike in the U.S; it's particularly interested in somehow partnering with Google to build a mobile network in the U.S., should the search giant win next month's spectrum auction. Elsewhere, South Korea's SK Telecom has dumped millions into the mobile virtual network operator Helio with disappointing results thus far. SK is banking on open wireless networks becoming the norm in the U.S., which would significantly bring down the cost of licensing network space from larger carriers.

But most Asian firms feel the area with the most potential for growth is the mobile Web and mobile Web-based services.

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