During the course of a conversation with Reuters at the 2013 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, two South Korean telecom executives cautioned the mobile operators in Europe about the potential problems that they may face with 4G networks.

With South Korea being the most wired country in the world - having 30 percent of its 50 million mobile users on high-speed networks -, and having essentially served as an inspiration for a number of European mobile operators ahead of their own rollout of 4G networks, the executives chiefly drew attention to the issues that they had to face after the roll-out of 4G nearly 18 months back.

Via Reuters, the two South Korean telecom executives - from SK Telecom Co and KT Corp - told the European mobile operators that even though the rollout of super-fast networks had been good for the consumers in the country, the telecom companies were still struggling to make money on the technology launched 18 months ago.

Although the two executives noted that the demand for the 4G networks was unprecedented for the South Korean mobile operators, KT Corp's head Suk-Chae Lee said that the key issue which the carriers were facing was that the consumers were apparently unwilling to pay enough.

Noting that the fundamental problem is whether the carriers can make any money out of 4G, Lee said that the rollout of 4G networks is "a blessing to customers but it is a curse on the operators."