Ericsson surprised to find itself in partnership with South Korea

Two days ago, South Korea announced that Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer, Ericsson AB (ERIC) planned to spend $1.5 billion in South Korea to develop a high-speed wireless Internet technology. This program, which was scheduled to take five years, was allegedly backed by AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless (VZ).

Before long, the web was rife with pictures and quotes from South Korean government officials proudly pontificating about the Ericsson deal. Under the agreement, the country was poised to become the test bed for Long Term Evolution (LTE), a futuristic wireless technology. Better yet, the deal was predicted to generate 1,000 new jobs in the country.

But then a somewhat befuddled Ericsson responded that it had no such plans in South Korea.