OT--BROADBANK IN KOREA:
<<<Broadband service booms at Net speed
BY DON KIRK, New York Times
Published Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News
SEOUL, South Korea -- Kim Sung Bae recalls with a rueful grin how hard it was to persuade people to pay an extra 40,000 Korean won a month, about $30, for the new high-speed Internet connections he was trying to sell two years ago.
``I said, `The speed is ultra-fast, you can enjoy data surfing and stock transactions and bill paying,' but people didn't believe me,'' said Kim, a salesman for Hanaro Telecom, founded four years ago, just before a round of economic crisis.
The timing, though, was right. By late 1999, the nation was in a boom of sorts, and high-technology companies were leading the way.
``There were so many Internet venture companies in Seoul and other big cities,'' Kim said, ``and the demand for fast service with high quality was growing. Now everybody uses it.''
Today, South Korea is suffering new economic problems that have people asking whether another crisis looms, but one thing is certain. The broadband service Kim and hundreds of others worked so hard to introduce -- a way to receive images and information at several times the speed possible with ordinary phone lines -- is now so embedded here that nothing is going to change except, perhaps, electronic communication getting even faster.
While broadband is available in all advanced countries, it has caught on here twice as fast as in Canada, which has the second-highest broadband penetration.
By the end of the year, said Lee Sang Chul, president of Korea Telecom, the telephone company, partly government-owned, that provides 49 percent of South Korea's broadband service, ``the number of actual users nationwide is projected at 23 million,'' or half the nation's population.
``In some apartment complexes,'' he added, in a speech earlier this month, ``the residential penetration rate of broadband hovers over 75 percent.''
Just why has broadband caught on here so much faster than in Japan, the United States and Western Europe?
The answer lies in part in efforts by the Korean government and in part in competition between Korea Telecom, founded more than a century ago, the upstart Hanaro and several even younger, brasher competitors.
The real answer, though, lies with a people who like nothing better than to communicate. ``It's a culture thing,'' said Lee Jae Hong, a director in the information and communication ministry. ``People loved it. Subscribers increased dramatically. Our domestic Internet content has lots of moving pictures and graphics. Everything needs to go `pali, pali' -- quickly, quickly.''
All wanted the same thing
Young people crowding rooms full of computers, homemakers in apartment blocks, executives and office workers hustling to ride the crest of the information revolution -- all wanted the same thing: quick communication, quick games, quick contact.
There was ``growing demand, responsive supply and appropriate government policy,'' said Lee Sang Chul. ``These three elements created synergism to prompt explosive growth.''
The demand is such that smoke-filled ``PC rooms,'' where young customers spend hours at a stretch, have largely replaced the relatively leisurely cybercafes. To chat with friends, play games and do schoolwork online, food and drinks are a distraction.
``Koreans are fond of community,'' said Lee Taek Kyu, the 34-year-old owner of Orange PC, a third-floor room in a small building in central Seoul, packed with about 50 computers, almost all of them occupied by youthful customers paying 1,500 won, or $1.15, an hour. ``In Seoul, there are between 15,000 and 20,000 rooms like this,'' he said. ``They all have broadband service.''
Games are undoubtedly the biggest attraction for the 20-somethings in his PC room, and Diablo and Starcraft, both from the United States, and a Korean football game rank as favorites. ``They go out, they eat some, they come back, and they're here for five hours, maybe longer,'' Lee said as an assistant tried to clear the air with a disinfectant spray.
Craze in apartment buildings
The broadband craze is, if anything, more pronounced in the apartment buildings that form the skylines of Seoul and other cities. Virtually every new building is now built with fiber-optic wiring to each apartment, and in the last year or two this wiring has been installed in most older buildings.
The advent of broadband, though, was not cheap. The government estimates the cost of developing the technology, building the infrastructure and marketing it at $30 billion between 2000 and 2005.
Korea Telecom and Hanaro, which rely largely on telephone wires, and Thrunet, which uses cable modems, are counting on huge subscriber bases. By the end of the year, there will be 8 million subscribers, 49 percent on Korea Telecom's Megapass service, 26 percent on Hanaro's HanaFOS, 17 percent wired to Thrunet and the rest divided among half a dozen small providers.
Government influence is pervasive. ``Korea Telecom rose quickly because the government had some vision,'' said Oh Sung Jin, deputy director of the communication ministry's broadband section. ``We're pushing carriers to push the service with low fees.''
The theory is that all providers will make money, but now all are suffering.
Korea Telecom stock has fallen to 40,000 won today from 180,000 won two years ago, while the government has found no buyers for its 40 percent stake. Stock in Hanaro, formed at the behest of the communications ministry to compete with Korea Telecom as a telephone provider, has fallen to 2,500 won from 20,000 won a year ago.
www0.mercurycenter.com
Based on the article:
High-speed Internet subscribers per 100 residents:
S. Korea 13.9
Canada 6.2
Sweden 4.5
US 3.2
Netherlands 2.7
Austria 2.4
Belgium 2.3
Denmark 2.2
Germany 1.0
Japan 0.9
Sitzerland 0.7
Iceland 0.7
Poor America !
>>>
Namaste!
Jim |
