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America's Broadband Dream Is Alive-- In Korea
An anonymous reader writes "America's Broadband Dream Is Alive in Korea thanks to government encouragement, according to the NY times (free reg, etc...). But profits are elusive." The U.S. is a lot more spread out than Korea, though -- some American cities are pretty well connected.
I think this would be much harder to implement here in the US.. too much space, geographically, and an economy that's already in the dumps... it would be cool to see, but maybe wireless would be a more viable option (if it ever becomes legitimately secure, which it sort of inherently isn't, I guess)...
http://www.babysmasher.com
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That's North Korea. This article talks about South Korea. There is extreme economic disparity between the two.
..that Korea is about the size of new jersey. I assuming that south korea is half that.
..and is anyone wondering why despite America's huge landmass and population spread over it.. that this broadband dream hasn't happened here yet? :)
Maybe I would have broadband available where I live if the US government were an 'encouraging' entity instead of bogged down in bureaucracy. Whatever happened to leadership? Looks to me as though it's moving overseas...
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
Not only is USA more spread out, but Korea is full of high-density housing. I mean, Seoul looks like something out of a profitable Sim City, with entire clusters of high-density houses. And then theres the net cafes for LAN games for when the kiddies want to leave their broadband home connections and go outside.
... like in Japan, but with less bullshit bureaucracy. If anything, Id say Korea is fast becoming Japans technophile dream.
Koreas definitely at the forefront - subway has cell phone access, mainstream TV shows feature live gaming
Thanks to our lame free enterprise system, where one company (regardless of how many smaller units the FTC breaks it up into) owns all of the cable or phone line, broadband is just not affordable.
We've gone from ~$30/mo for 6Mb in the @Home days to nearly $50/mo for 1.5Mb thanks to ATT and now Comcast. In another 5 years, BB will be $100/mo for 768Kb. Gee, more money for less speed, I can't imagine why it's not taking off!
One well-placed North Korean nuke and South Korea's broadband capacity won't look quite as attractive to business.
More to the point, North Korea has artillery in position right now that could level Seoul in 5 minutes, and It's been like that for years. Talk about a mind-fuck.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The word is Deterance, and North Korea is building nuclear weapons to defend their soverenty against Bush and his fanatically aggressive millitary campaigns.. and you wonder why you have no friends... *sigh*
PS: Although that is one way to look at things, it is also possible that North Korea has always wanted nukes and has used the Iraqi war as an excuse to build them. Either way, America has made North Korea a lot more justified in building up their weapons programs.
Teacher: Peace begets peace and war begets war.
Bush: But they are crazy!
Teacher: Hmm.. so, what have we learned children?
Bush: Kill them before the kill us!
Bye!
.. is that the entire nation was dumped on the Internet at the same time. An entire nation of newbies. All the schools in South Korea got the same distro of Linux with open proxies running, and I'm not sure if there's a single working abuse emailbox in the whole country.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Particularly discouraging is that the US doesn't even have a policy to get broadband into every home on the horizon while practically all other modern, democratized nations do. We're still waiting for the Free Market Fairy to come along and wave her magic wand.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Once this and other rogue nations and ISPs behave in a responsible manner, perhaps they can rejoin the club. Now back to our regular programming :-) . . .
a world in progress...
Did I miss something? Did the two Koreas repair their relationship and become one? Or have we used US Tax $dollars to wire up North Korea?
After the US didn't do shit to help them.
The US fully complied with the agreement.
They won't. The only guarantee they have to safety is their nuclear arsenal. Why sell the thing that keeps you safe? You may think, "Oh, but they can sell them secretely and still claim they have it." The world intelligence is pretty good, and that ruse wouldn't last long.
Most of the process of getting nukes is gaining the technical expertise to build them. They can sell this without losing it. Also, they can keep some plutonium and sell some. How many nuclear weapons does one terrorist or rogue nation need to cause trouble? Exactly, one.
http://nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldbusin
with this valid link from Google:u siness/05BROA.html?ex=1052712000&en=5906ece0642a35 44&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldb
What you suggest, which looks something like this, simply does not work:e ss/05BROA.html?pagewanted=all&position=&partner=GO OGLE
http://nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldbusin
Notice all the fancy numbers in the real Google link. Those are what authorize you to view the page, not just the &partner=GOOGLE part.
But yes, I agree that people should go to news.google.com and find a valid Google referer when linking NY Times stories.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The US, South Korea, and Japan have been providing large amounts of food aid to North Korea for years now.
They signed the so-called 'Sunshine' agreement (The official name was the 'agreeded' protocal, or something like that), guaranteeing oil, and light water reactors in exchange for shelving their nuclear weapons program.
Then North Korea says, oh, by the way, we've been building nukes all along.
And using nukes as a deterrent? Bullshit. They are using nukes for extortion! "Give us more aid, don't stop trading with us, or we will use our nukes."
They haven't said if you attack us, we will use them. They said if you stopped subsidizing our failing, stalinist economy, we will consider that a decleration of war. When India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, they got sanctioned. Why? Because we have worldwide treaties to prevent nuclearization of signatories to the NPT. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is a signatory to the NPT.
But if we sanction them, they will destroy Seoul, and half of South Korea.
They are using their military might to prop up a failing, and disgusting stalinist regime. Even if you are a good little Marxist, you should be appalled at the structure of the DPRK. They don't deserve a guarantee of safety.
Why do I say this? Because if they had just stuck with the sunshine agreement, they wouldn't need one. They would be well on track to integration with South Korea, and liberalization.
Instead, they choose to prop up a stalinist hell with nuclear THREAT.
And why should we trust them again? We fund them with food aid, and they go ahead a nuclearize anyway. That's crazy, and it is in exactly this scenario that appeasment doesn't work.
Tit-for-tat is the only workable strategy with a belligerent.
American policy makers DO understand that. Basically, what I forsee is forestalling the North Koreans, givening them half-concessions indefintely, in order to prevent a war, until their decript regime either collapse around them, or China decides its time for a change.
We have NO reason to invade North Korea, except so much as we perceive them to be a threat to South Korea. Nuclearization makes them more of a threat, not less---They are attempting blackmail.
And at this point in time, China probably is more interested in good relations with South Korea (for economic trade relations), then North Korea.
Screw them. Let those bastards starve. They threaten to kill 6 million South Koreans to prop up their disgusting regime?
I hate those bastards.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The neo-cons may mistakenly believe the pseudo-libertarian notion that everything should be a market, but any student of history and economics knows that a society is best served when public utilities are managed in the interest of the public as a whole. In case you didn't notice, sewage, gas, electricity, water, and roads are considered public utilities. What's so different about telecommunications?
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
There's a ton of absurd rhetoric coming from leaders in all nations, not just from Bush. You don't see everyone else running out to get nukes, do you? North Korea's leaders are irrational, thus their actions cannot be explained, let alone justified.
The difference is Bush just destroyed an existing government and invaded another country without UNSEC approval. That would make anybody nervous who is listed on Bush's Axis of Evil list.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
More significantly, the U.S. have nuclear weapons in position right now that could level the whole planet in 5 minutes, and it's been like that for years. Talk about a mind-fuck.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.