ZDNet Asia's Lynn Tan reports today on an analyst briefing by Samsung's Kang Hoon Lee regarding the relationship between WiBro and future 4G networks.

"WiBro is a necessary intermediate step towards 4G," Lee said, explaining that a future 4G network will integrate both wired and wireless connectivity to support speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

What makes WiBro unique, Lee said, is its ability to provide "handover functionality" and therefore ubiquitous connectivity.

The idea is that 4G will "connect various networks such as mobile communications, broadband wireless access, nomadic and home networks," Lee said. "Even though individual networks started separately with their own purposes, they will eventually be converted to 4G network."

Tan adds that IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) is another key component of 4G. "Through applications built on IMS -- which runs on high-speed IP networks -- users can share video content while having a conversation on the phone, exchange files in single session, and even text message across a variety of devices on a unified platform," she writes.