That sentiment, though, was dismissed by KTF's Song, who spoke enthusiastically about an agreement between his company and Hyundai to provide advanced global positioning systems in all the Korean automaker's vehicles. "The Korean market is a consumer market," he said. "We have not found a compelling application for business in terms of wireless convergence."

Even if that's true, Pathak said, all the companies now eyeing the broadband convergence arena are going to have to forge partnerships with other businesses. This isn't a go-it-alone technology; convergence by its definition is a collection of multiple technologies and applications. To offer a convergence product, companies will have to meld their areas of expertise. "Convergence will not be company against company but value chain vs. value chain," said Pathak. "It's ecosystem-based competition as opposed to firm-based competition."

An excellent model of that, Pathak said, is the partnership that began in 2002 between Yahoo and SBC to offer Yahoo content and services over SBC's DSL lines. Recently, the companies expanded this joint venture to provide video-on-demand, Internet radio and online photos for home-entertainment devices, such as television sets and stereo equipment. In addition, Yahoo-SBC signed a deal with Cingular Wireless to offer multimedia content to the cellular provider's subscribers. "Companies have to work with companies they didn't have to work with before," Pathak said.

Yong Shu, vice president of Asia Pacific region for Riverstone Networks, which provides network management equipment to carriers, service providers and cable companies, offered a dire warning to companies that don't appreciate the importance of new partnerships. He predicted a period of industry consolidation and pointed to the swallowing of AT & T by Cingular and SBC as an example of how weak companies will fare. "What do you expect? In five years when a customer comes to your shop, what is he going to buy? Will he want 100 Mb/s [broadband service] or Internet TV or certain entertainment applications? [If we don't offer these], we will die."

And, in an unlikely sentiment from a network supplier, Shu added that telecom providers are probably giving too much attention to the network itself. "We focus too much on technologies," Shu said.

That brought a sharp rebuke from Hanaro's Yoon. "If you do not have a strong enough telecom service provider, there is no convergence at all," he said. "So the infrastructure matters. You can't ignore that."

Telephone executives say they're also trying to adjust as the market changes and be there when it finally settles down. "A carrier like us is continuously evolving," said KTF's Song, who demonstrated cell phones that were carrying high-quality broadcasts of Korean soap operas. "We just want to develop a mixture of fixed and wireless convergence to allow the customer to always be connected. Profitability? There is no time-frame for profitability."

Those are the same famous last words uttered during the Internet boom. Broadband convergence, though, is a much bigger market with much higher stakes. This time, the Korean telecom companies hope, the rules are different enough that massive investment without profits is the right strategy--and that they will still be standing when broadband convergence pays off.