Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Broadband Is The Secret To South Korea's Success

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the LPB dept.

An anonymous reader writes "What makes South Korea so special in the world of high-speed Internet access? How can the U.S. and other countries learn from it? What separates South Korea from the rest is a clear agenda and execution process by the government. They wanted to be THE broadband capital of the world so bad, they never swayed from that goal. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, South Korea was desperate for a savior. The government realized technology was going to restore the country's economic health so the entire country unified to push broadband penetration rates to the extreme."

3 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bush is Pushing for Broadband too... by nojomofo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is it the fault of "American Capitalism" that your girlfriend has a dialup line? Because somebody hasn't given her broadband for free? I consider myself liberal, but really, isn't it going a bit far to expect your government to buy you your damn broadband connection?

  2. Could it be... by Bob-o-Matic! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. that nearly one-fourth of the RoK population lives in one metropolitan area?

    2. that all telco equipment was most likely installed well after 1953, whereas the US infrastructure is surely much older? ... Don't have time to finish this post... think about Korea Telecom... government runned telco...

    DSL rules in the RoK. No doubt about it. Although as I was leaving in March 2003, wireless was catching on.

    I for one miss my 6Mb/1Mb connection for about $35/month (no contract so it was more pricey).

    Also, it was interesting explaining to the techs that I needed to swap my internal (pci) ADSL modem for an external one so I could use linux. The techs had never seen linux, so I invited one over to show them. Maybe they were just blown away by a caucasian speaking their language fluently.... ;)

  3. government getting out of the way by suhlash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The high penetration rate of broadband into south korean homes is definitely a economic advantage and productivity enhancer. But I disagree with the argument that government must do more to help the penetration of broadband into homes. Government must do less - they need to get out of the way and regulate less so the market forces can be unleashed. The american broadband penetration is considerable less mainly because there is so much government involvement and regulation at every level from national to local. The south korean government did the companies that wanted to build and enable broadband a favor by streamlining their regulations and reducing the hurdles.