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American View On Korean Broadband Leadership
prostoalex writes "South Korea remains the world's undisputed broadband leader (in terms of penetration) with 25 broadband lines for every 100 people as of year-end 2004. But how did it come to that? Joel Strauch moved there to teach English and in his letter to PC World he portrays the everyday life in broadband heaven as well as names the reasons for Korean broadband dominance: 'An ambitious, nearly $11 billion program, it appears to be working. Studies have shown that over a quarter of Koreans have broadband and that anyone who wants it can sign up--with some ISPs charging as little as $19 a month for DSL. I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.'"
We all know the importance of quickly downloaded porn and illegal games :)
I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States
I live in a pretty high-cost area of the country and my 3 Mbit/sec service is less than $50/month from Comcast, maybe he left the US too long ago.
I am so jealous. Cheap and ubiquitous.
-- sed s/liberty/profit/g US.Constitution
Just curious. One is a lot more impressive than the other.:-P
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
All I can see from here is the port scanning that continuously comes from their networks. And the lack of response when I try to report it to their ISPs.
So. Korea being the size of about New Jersey
might be the reason broadband has deeper penetraton than in the US.
...isn't that great. I get 3mb down, 1.5 up for 40 in Cincy, OH.
You can play Starcraft perfectly well on a 56k line.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
.. Until you find out how much it costs to move to Korea. That and learning Korean are minor setbacks to the promised land. If only someone could convince G W B that korea has WMD....
I think I'll stick with my $40 per month for 4MB down / 512KB up (Cox).
You can get 100Mbps for $50(US) in Japan and ditto in Sweden for $40.
That includes VoIP service.
Anything less is stoneage.
Hedley
Studies have shown that over a quarter of Koreans have broadband and that anyone who wants it can sign up--with some ISPs charging as little as $19 a month for DSL. I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.
So? Qwest DSL is $29.95/mo for 256k DSL. I pay $49.95/month for 2048/256k. If I went with cable (Charter) it would be 39.95/month for 3000/384 (with no servers permitted).
I really am not impressed with $30 for 1.5. With Roadrunner and Comcast jumping to 5000+/384 why the hell would I be impressed with 1500 down?
When asked if they had ever used a dial-up connection, In Me So, a computer science major at WonKwang University said, "I remember using a 56K modem once, about eight years ago."
The last time I used dialup was 1997 when I left for college. When I got home in 1998 we upgraded to DSL (640/128). I haven't used dialup since. So what? I wasn't exactly in a well populated area in NEPA at the time either.
Honestly, I'm not impressed w/these lowspeed connections. I am more impressed what I hear about over in Europe... People with 100mbit connections being common and cheap.
Personally, I'm not even impressed with wired broadband (we have a 400mbit connection at work, I rarely see over 500kB/s unless I am connecting to some major mirror where I get over 1.5mb/s). I want to see wireless broadband that's cheap. Then I'll be impressed.
... to be able to get broadband easily at a decent price. And lots of gamers which I am one.
Are there any U.S. cities that have a lot of high technology with broadband services everywhere and cheap?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Earthlink's got a deal now in the U.S. where you can get DSL for 19.95 for the first half-year. I don't know exactly how fast it is for that price, but I think it's 1.5 mbps. Anyone have more info?
Also, I believe SBC is matching that price as well.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
"with some ISPs charging as little as $19 a month for DSL. I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.'"
I only pay like $29 a month for 3.0/768 from Verizon DSL so at least things can be pretty good here if you live in the right place. Of course the kicker as always is location, location, location. After having broadband for 5 years now I don't think I would even consider moving somewhere where its not available in either cable or dsl form.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Korea is insanely net-centric, almost to the point of absurdity (as anyone who's ever been to Seoul can attest), but it also has the benefits of being considerably smaller than the US, which makes it easier to run broadband. In the US we're seeing the commoditization of dialup where the prices for dialup service have dropped over time, and eventually once the market penetration gets to a certain point broadband prices will likely drop as well (especially if Wi-Max takes off.
However, when you're dealing with a country that's several thousand miles across rather than several hundred, it's harder to lay enough fiber/cable to make things work.
USA land area: 9,161,923 km^2
I suppose you could broadband wire all of new york city + the nearby cities for $11 billion also.
TANSTAAFL.
Another one bites the dust
With fast Internet access so commonplace, I'm wondering if Acceptable Use Policies in Korea allow the running of servers - something that I look for. In Australia you usually gotta change to an overpriced plan for that to be allowed.
- SBC (primarily it's PacBell portion)
- Verizon
- BellSouth
We would've long ago had a much higher penetration level, except they want to control the lines and the access.OCO is Loco
You guys should feel lucky. I've got 1500/256. It costs me $50 a month.
/near Knoxville, TN
Someone asked why you'd want to pay for 1500/256. You know, I can't afford to have a T3 come into my house. Tht's why I pay for my pathetic broadband that Bellsouth pretty much has a monopoly on around here.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I've tried it several times, but I found the biggest issue was that I would always slow down the game and sometimes get disconnected. That's also because I had a terrible ISP, but this is much rarer to find on broadband.
Also remember that if your plug gets disconnected from the NIC, it can be back in seconds. Think about how long it takes to dial back online--you're dropped from any game by then.
I pay $80 a month for 600kbp up/down DSL and then another $120 to the phone company for the line. This is currently the fastest/cheapest we have seen and it is recent.
The phone company is slightly scamming in that they have listed on their page that the 256kbps line that I had been paying for through them could handle 1.5mbps downloads but the 256kbps was for the uploads.
But when I complained to them that I was getting nowhere near 600kbps downloads, they told me that I needed to upgrade my line with them (meaning in payment).
So I did that and now I am paying more, but still not getting the speed.
The ISP swears that they turned off the limits on my account, so I *should* be getting even 1.5mbps through them, but I am getting about 250kbps at best.
Lately when I try calling my home phone number, I can't get through and instead just get a blast of static and then a dead line.
I am assuming that is probably related to why my DSL speed sucks, but in order to get them to come look at it, for some reason I have to actually be here (none of the phone line is inside the house except for the short line that comes in through the wall to where I have my phone) - and I can't just leave me job and lounge around the house all day (were I an exec I could work from home, but I am the IT bitch at work, so that means I need to be there in person).
Just thinking about all of this wants me to smack someone.
But I live in Bermuda, and when I mention that to anyone, they assume that I spend my days lounging on the beach and don't have much sympathy for me. Of course, I am a nerd and don't care about the beach or sunburns, and right now it is COLD outside.
I envy the broadband of South Korea.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I live in the Silicon Valley, and I pay $40/month for a 6mbps DSL line (606kbps upstream) from SBC/Yahoo!.
I don't know who this guy was using for an ISP, but $50/month for a 1.5 (i'm assuming that's what his US account was) certainly isn't a fair price for my area at this time.
I live in Saskatoon, SK. For the geographically disinclined, this is north of Montana/North Dakota.
Around here, a 1.5Mb DSL line from the local telco goes for $35 CAD/mo, and a 5Mbit connection is $45/mo CAD.
For a bit more, I can get digital TV over DSL, with an interactive decoder box that hooks into the broadband line.
American telcos are seriously overcharging....
Videotron cable :
5.1 mbps (~ 125k up / 600k down)
20gb down/ 10gb up limit
34$CAN / month
If population density makes it so easy to provide fast & cheap broadband, why doesn't it exist in New York or San Francisco?
Sometimes I think once people realize what a fast downstream pipe can do for them, that is when broadband will TRULY take off.
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Obvious counter-example: Sweden.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
If you include length of lines, then sparser areas would fair better. A larger country might have to bury more fiber to provide the broadband connections.
It seems to me that you would want to do something like comparing metro areas to metro areas, rural areas to rural areas. Even that doesn't work, as some countries have densely populated rural areas. The population distribution will be the single largest factor in determine broadband connections per person than any other factor.
nearly $11 billion program ... I pay $30 myself ... twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.'"
Let's see here; he's crowing about how it "costs less" at $30 per month yet ignores the taxes collected to create the $11B system. Sorry people, it ain't cheaper; the costs are just hidden in the Koreans' taxes.
For around 6,000JPY a month on ADSL.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Since when was $50 twice what $30 is ...
I thing you're thinking about North Korea in a few months.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I've never understood how endless pictures of folks flashing the peace sign could be so popular - but our Korean students manage to max out our bandwidth on sites just like Cyworld.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Twice the SPEED, not twice the price.
Dollars are only a valid measurement of speed in government agencies.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
South Korea is about the size of Indiana. If the US were to spend $11 billion for wiring Indiana, they'd have a pretty good internet infrastructure, too.
Also, with a population of 48.5 million people, Korea is pretty densely populated. Compare that to Indiana, which at 6.2 million people, is fairly lightly populated. It wouldn't be cost effective to wire the entire state for broadband with the population density it currently has.
Chip H.
I'm sure when he says 1.5 megabits per second cable, that means both down AND up. I personally know a few people in Korea with similar connections, for similar amounts of money.
So PLEASE stop posting your 3 mb down/ 256 kb up Comcast connections and screaming that you have it better than them.
The key issue with broadband is not penetration rates nor is it necessarily speed. The key question is what to do with it. The economic future of broadband will be determined by what it enables, not how many people have it. Right now it enables...what? Web content comes down faster but it was never that slow to begin with. Phone service is possible now with VOIP, but phone service is already available cheaply from the variety of landline or wireless phone companies. Movies and music are an obvious target for the high-efficiency distribution of the Internet, but the key issue there (and it's a huge one) is DRM.
Korea has a higher percentage of users than the US, but has not shown leadership vs. the US in answering the central question of what to do with broadband. That's why I have a hard time listening to talk of Korean BB "leadership."
If there was an 11 billion dollar government program to increase broadband penetration, then it doesn't cost each person in SK 30 bucks a month. It costs them 30 bucks a month plus that portion of their taxes which is going to subsidize broadband.
In the US we could pay nothing in broadband and have it be completely subsidized by the government. But we'd still be paying for it through taxes.
What worse about subsidization, even if you don't use broadband you have to pay for it, depending on how their taxation scheme works.
I am all for increasing US's broadband connections but it's not all bad here, there is far more internet penetration and PC's among the populace here than in SK.
Pointless! This is NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS. Not "some nutters opinion on the economy, moaning he's being screwed because his country has more money then sense".
I like muppets.
Well, they have a $19.95/mo SBC/Yahoo DSL package - if you already subscribe to the other SBC home telephone service packages (long distance, etc)
They kind of hide that fact under disclaimers..
Density helps some, but there are a lot of costs that you just can't cough at. I hear this comment too often to just leave as a fact.
Costs to run a CLEC
1. Administration / Laws / Taxes
I am assuming in this example that the pervayors of SK have similar restrictions and tax structures that the US does.
2. Inter-country fiber
Once again, one can make the assumption that SK has similar agreements with all 3rd parties for peering one another.
3. Inter-city fiber
This is where SK will save a lot of dimes in up front costs, and maybe a little bit over time. For fiber, I bet there aren't many ongoing costs unless they're renting the lines/land from someone else.
3. Intra-city fiber
The number doesn't change between KM and the US unless ther population density within cities are greater than that of the US. From reading stats on each country's overall density, it can be said that SK's cities are more dense, hence less cost per capita to deploy broadband (though incremental).
4. Subscriber concentrators
For DSL, this will need to be a few KM from each subscriber's home. The units themselves are relational to the number of customers plugging in and have relatively linear price scaling, so a concentrator in a small town of 500 subscribers would be around 1/4 the price of a town with 2000 subscribers.
5. Marketing
I could be wrong, but it seems that N.A. carriers spend a hell of a lot marketting their products to consumers. That money could have been better served deploying broadband to more people, or lowering their prices (yeah right). So, the economics of the two countries may make aquiring subscribers in SK cheaper.
Bye!
Japan and Korea have govt. subsidized and in some areas, regulated pricings on broadband. The US could easily come within striking distance of those prices if we broke up the oligopolies that charge exhoribtant prices to access the backbone.
I just moved to Mountain View and nowhere on SBC's page do they say anything about a 6mbit package.
They used to offer that in San Francisco (old job had it), but I haven't been able to get any information from them for new subscribers. The fastest thing they list on their website is 1.5-3.0mbit down. for $36.99, 1 dynamic IP.
Got the printout of the SBC site right here.. next to Speakeasy's 6.0/768 package with 4 IP addresses for $115.mo. mmmm.... tempting...
If you think that capitialism does not allow monopolies, talk to Microsoft.
What if the monopoly provider decides to disallow all "insensitive content"?
What if the police cars only let red SUVs travel on the middle lanes of the highway?
I'm not saying that broadband should be done the way it is in S.Korea, just that knee jerk reactions bother me.
Well, here in NYC time warner controlled EVERYTHING. When I moved here i was forced to sign up with Time Warner for service. After losing my job and running out of money, I realized I had to cut costs everywhere. I was paying 50/month for broadband before. Then looked online and found links from RoadRunner(time warner's special name for broadband that confuses people who don't understand that its interchangeable) website that offered service from other providers. Apparently Time Warner was forced to give up control of their accounts to other providers. I called time warner they made it very unclear what the switchover process was - including telling me that it would be same price with other provider and that I would continue to be billed through them. FInally got new connection - 19.95 for first 3 months from earthlink 40/month thereafter - that's when I switch to next provider!
I get 4Mbits down for around $45 a month from comcast.
A moderate deal, at least until verizon showed up. thier FIOS service offers 15Mbits/2Mbits for $50 a month. I can't comprehend 15Mbits for one computer. I don't know about the rest of the country but we are knee deep in bandwidth here...
Online radio stations? Game servers? The Japanese connections seem to have pretty sweet upload speeds as well.
Remember that? The logic of all of the Info Super Hi-way rhetoric lead to a federal program to build network infrastructure. Sadly, that appears to have been too "hard" for a government that prefers symbols over substance and considered talking about it "good enough". The fact is that for the 21st century, national network infrastructure will be just as important as the physical highway system was in the 20th century. The US is a "knowledge" economy after all. Granted it is much easier for S Korea to build out their networks than it is for the US. Korea is 85% urban and much much smaller than most US states. And by relying on commercial business to wire the country, the US ended up with gluts of fiber in urban centers and not enough longhaul and rural fiber. If the US wants to compete with lower cost offshore firms then the US needs to provide infrastructure for knowledge firms to relocate to lower cost regions of the US. There are a lot of them.
You are correct. But lets say they are going to collect that money no matter what... Then what would you rather have them spend it on? Broadband is nice and seems to fit in well with their goal of electronic government
While U.S. aid to South Korea was phased out quite a while ago-- our committment to their defense must help them to be able to do this kind of thing as well. If they were on their own against North Korea I would imagine they would be compelled to divert even more to defense. So in part the U.S. is helping to make this possible.
There are some nice facts on Korea (little dated) here
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
While there are a number of posts saying, "I've got x for $30 a month" there are still many areas in the U.S. where the broadband provider has a local monopoly. Case in point, my town, which only has Time Warner Cable (no DSL) charges $50/month for broadband alone. When I was getting expanded cable t.v. and broadband, my monthly bill crept up to over $120/month. My parents, who live 50 miles north of me get broadband and expanded cable t.v for $45/month. Why? They have competition. I work with people who get Time Warner broadband and they get it cheaper than I did simply by living in another location.
It seems we love monopolies here in America since it's taboo to meddle with business too much.
Ok is he listing real USD, or is he doing some kind of comparison of what it would be if it compared to the average American salary?
If he's gonna use USD he needs to specify what the average korean makes in USD. According to about.com the average korean makes between 20,000,000 and 50,000,000 WON, which converts to about $20,000 to $50,000 USD (although xe.com has a more accurate conversion, but that's pretty close.
Here's a teacher's salary, about $2,200 a month. That site also claims taxes are only 5 to 10% which is much lower than what I'm currently paying in the US, I'm paying about 15% right now.
Considering that's probably what the average american salary is I'd have to say $19/mo DSL isn't a bad deal, but Yahoo/SBC offers "Up to 1.5 Mbps" DSL for $26.95/mo with a one year commitment so I don't see why his "I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection" is so great, he's paying more for DSL than it is here!
Is this a great example of "move along folks, nothing to see here"?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
In Paris here I've been very pleasantly surprised by a company called Free (free.fr) that offers a free DSL modem/TV/telephone box (USB and ethernet, phone jack, and SCART) and then 20mbit unlimited download (with 3mbit up) for 29.99euros. TV via ADSL too and then free nlimited calling withinn France and 2cents a minute to just about anywhere else in the world. Pretty sweet frikken deal.
But lets say they are going to collect that money no matter what... Then what would you rather have them spend it on?
How about sewage treatment, trash collection, pollution controls. Have you ever been to Seoul?Inchon?
Korea sounds like a good place for broadband, but then so is Sweden and so are large cities in Italy.
Here in Sweden I get 10 mbit up and 10 down (tested, yes it's really 10, using a fiber feed right into my home) with a semi-static IP (changes only when I reboot) for about $55 per month. For another 30 a month I can upgrade that to 100 mbit up/down. This has no earthly use I can think of other than sucking down TV and movies but it's grand and not expensive. In fact it's entirely replaced my TV.
You can get similar service at similar prices from Fastweb in the biggest cities in Italy.
And unlike Korea, per-capita income is higher here, (even after taxes) so you can discount those prices a bit.
Maybe it's not Korea being heaven so much as the U.S. slipping behind... Even back in 1999 when I lived in Canada, Canada had more broadband at better prices than the US.
You know thinking about the pay-per-show idea, shows that we love(d) such as Futurama need not have perished if the content was supported by the consumers. Taking Futurama as an example Fox execs have a narrow channel to push content, for whatever reasons they determined that that channel was better used serving other content, now in the 100Mbps fibre world with distributed time shifted content and an international viewing audience, the small fee adds up and pays for the show. Different models could be arranged, pay-per-show or free with commercials.
No show that we like and support need die under this type of system.
Hedley
Microsoft is a special case which would never happen in a true capitalistic system. Their monopoly is only there by governmental force: If I start selling copies of their product I get sued out of existence. Remarkably, there are very few examples of true (non-government-enforced) monopolies these days. Some cable companies might count, but again that's a heavily regulated market.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
He didn't say low density and large area were impossible, only that low density and small area made it easier. Sweden is only an obvious counter-example if you somehow show that installing the infrastructure wasn't harder.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
He probably has a symmetric connection. Clearly, the ones you listed are not.
1.5 mbit for $30? Seriously, in Korea? I live in Japan and here average is 30 to 50 Mbit, with 3-5 Mbit up (ADSL) or 100/100Mbit Fibre. Prices are ~3500 to 5400 yen per month, most include IP Phone.
For example I pay 4500 yen (~$43) for 50/5 ADSL with ip phone. So, even in Austria, you can get 2Mbit for that price. Somehow I think that article is either very very old, or something else is wrong here.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Can you believe it? They actually have the nerve to want to control the lines that they spent billions of dollars burying all over the country. The lines that they paid for, buried or hung where they paid for easements. Those low life bastards.
I am frankly amazed that the government was convinced to give others access to their lines. It's a huge government sanctioned land grab and it definitely wasn't fair. Imagine how you would feel.
Let's say that you built a killer game system in your home. You bought all the equipment and paid the labor to set t all up. Then the government and a bunch of whiny losers come along and force you to give every Tom, Dick and Harry access to your game system. Oh, OK. You can charge them for using it but, there's limits. You aren't the one who decides what you can charge them.
Giant monopolies or not, the telecommunications industry took a great big one in the posterior when those laws passed. Slashdot would never tolerate such laws if they weren't directed at "evil corps".
I have no idea what kind of connection I have, but it's Cox cable in Greenville, NC (city of ~60k). I've seen it pull around 3 MB/s (megaBYTES) before, but uploads are definitely capped somewhere around 1 Mbit. Not bad for $40/mo.
E pluribus unum
1.5 meg for 30 bux?!?!?!? whats the BFD?
... whats the BFD?
... then we'll be kicking ass and taking names ....
I can get 3.0 mps for $29.95 from SBC (the Satanic Bastard Corporation) - so
Give my fiber to the home
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Look at the UK.
Here I pay £30 a month, which according to yahoo finance would be around $60. I have a 1024/256k line and thats a normal price to pay. A LOT of people here have 512/256k or lower internet connections, and there appear to be no plans to increase speed about 2048/256k, which I will be upgrading to soon (for around $80 a month).
I pay $30 (US Bux) for 1.2 Mbs d/l out in the Suburbs of L.A. Seems like a good deal to me. Its basically the same deal as the Author talks about. If you live in Montana and can't get broadband (talking only DSL..) then TOUGH! You also get MUCH MUCH cheaper housing (a good thing), bad weather, lack of other infrastructure (like places to shop, etc).
I bet there are places in Korea that CAN'T get broadband. How about areas close to the DMZ or WAY Up in the mountains. There are probably a few people living there, what kinda internet to THEY get.
GSG
The Alberta supernet is a government infrastructure project designed to provide high-speed, broadband access to public facilities (and through service providers, to businesses and residences) in Alberta communities, Alberta SuperNet is a partnership involving the government and private enterprise.
Alberta is a big place, over 250,000 sq. miles and the population desity is way lower than S. Korea.
Higher penetration the US market is possible now, but it will take US Gov intervention.
That's exactly the same thought that comes to my mind after reading all of these posts. We should be comparing the costs of symmetric lines not asymetric.
Is there anyone even offering symmetric service to residential customers without it being a business class service? I mean Speakeasy offers SDSL but it's business class and starts at about $100/mo.
Check out this post from a guy who lives in Korea. You won't believe the trouble he went through with his Internet service and getting a cellphone.
'E-Korea' - Myth versus Reality
Here is a brief excerpt:
Buying a Cell Phone
"Hi, I'd like to buy a cell phone."
"B . . . b . . . but you're a foreigner."
"Yeah, thanks, I'm aware of that. Now, can I buy the phone?"
"Well no, we don't sell to foreigners."
"Really? I printed this out from your website. It says you do."
"I don't care what our website says. We don't sell to foreigners."
He then goes on to describe his problems with broadband internet access. Check it out!
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
WHen the gov't has the majority of your money, it's easy to subsidize things. Factor disparate income taxes into your equation and talk to me about the effective rate.
Not so cheap any more, is it?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It's amazing how just reading an article of the achievements of another country can bring out such rampant jingoism in the slashdot community. What's next? "At least we don't live next to North Korea" arguments?
My digital rights don't need management.
We have TimeWarner/RoadRunner here in KC,MO -- they just upgraded our d/l speed to 5 megabits for no additional charge.. (still paying $44.95/month) no contracts, no stupid bandwitdth caps either.
I didn't say it was only population density and small geographic area. I said that was the case for South Korea versus say, the US as a whole.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
First off the broadband initiative in Korea is a government thing, and the entire wiring system was revamped for it, so everyone does have broadband. But compare to Japan, where 100mbps uncapped and unlimited connection can be purchased for just $20US a month in some areas. You can give everyone 1.5mb DSL "cheap", and adding a government initiative to that really helps saturation. But if you want to really look at a country doing things correctly you need to look at Japan.
Majority of koreans live in high rise apartments, which are usually packed close together. Its really easy for ISPs to drop off fiber to the curb and since last mile problem is minimezed ... ISP costs, maintenance, etc etc cost are minimized too. IMHO, it is one of teh biggest reasons for high penetration score of korean broadpband.
I live in Kamloops, BC and pay $30 CDN for 1.5M down and could pay slightly more if I wanted faster but I dont really need it. Ive got four computers on my network and im happy with the speed. Ive allways found it amazing how much people in the USA have to pay for DSL, its dirt cheap hear and has faily good penetration, hell even Clearwater BC has highspeed, and theyve only got a population of 4,400 ! thats right, thats not a big town by any means, 4,400.
The technology for deploying broadband is widely and cheaply available given the proper infrastructure. In addition, such technologies such as DSL rely on proximity to service providers to deliver their services. It's easy to see how this has happened and how comparitively it is more difficult for the US to match South Korea's deployment of broadband.
Start with land mass and population density. This is really the crux of the problem, and what truly stands in the way of wide spread deployment of broadband in the US. South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana but with 48 Million people. Quick math indicates that would be 487 people per sq km. There are 22 Million installed phone lines, or roughly one phone line for every two people.
Throw in 4% of the population living below the poverty line, and 3.14% recorded unemployment - the South Korean people can afford services like broadband.
Compartively the US has 9,161,923 sq km of land, with approximately 293 million people. That comes to 31 people per sq km on average. Given that most broadband services are distance sensitive, the cost of deploying broadband to the 31% of people living in low population desity areas, and keeping it relatively affordable becomes problematic. Add in to that number 12% of the US population who are below the poverty line. There are roughly 43% of the US population who either can't afford broadband or may not have service in their area.
It's pretty clear why South Korea can easily out pace the US on deploying broadband services to the people of their country. The US has greater obstacles to face - given time, these will be overcome.
Well, I am actually a South Korean studying in US for 5 years. Although the broadband infrastructure there is surely impressive, I am well aware of the limitations and problems associated with the net-frenzyness in South Korea.
..., well, that's only for some manias; it's really hard to grab a decent place for such things. The result is that more and more people are just relaxing at on-line rather than outdoors. Well, not very good for health. :(
..., most of them are just consuming digital merchandise having nothing to do with real life. For instance, I can hardly see handful of Koreans in any major open source project.
... posterior ... to see major South Korean webpage with non-WinIE browser. I really wonder if Korean web develoopers have ever heard of W3C. A handful of my friends and myself continue to protest and struggle, but things are never improving.
(1) Why so crazy for net?
First, as most of you already know, South Korea is about 20 times as densely populated as in the US. Even worse, more than half of the whole population live around Seoul, in a region that only counts one tenth of the country. I'm not mentioning the economy matters. Rather, I am pointing out that chances for sound outdoor activities are really scarce! For scuva diving, bike hiking, yacht and wind-surfing,
(2) So what do they do with net?
Next, because of that, most of the netizen activities of South Koreans are not very productive. Downloading pirated movies and musics, playing online games, creating and enjoying weird online communities,
(3) What's wrong with the digital consumerism? Why don't I like it?
These "digital consumerism" originated from the Asian economy crisis that hit South Korea at the end of 1997. To revive the economy, South Korean government encouraged IT industries and infrastructures, and lots of online contents providers are founded. One of the biggest investors were Micro$oft, and they provided support for developing M$-specific webpages; a screenful of images and ActiveX shits. That awful culture continues growing and growing, and now it's really a pain in the
In summary, I would say that although South Korean broadband infrastructure is decent, it's far from heaven in terms of what to do with that.
According to official Icelandic numbers 54% of Icelanders have broadband/ADSL
Hitler's in the fridge.
True that you cant get that vs most single external net sites.
But its still non the less very usefull:
scenario1: Download movies from within your providers net at the full speed
scenario2: Download a few movies from the net, maybe at 5-10Mit a piece, and still have plenty of room for other activities.
Look at: http://www.answers.com/topic/trust-busting The Wikipedia definition is the best.
In the early 1900s Teddy Roosevelt (and others) set about "trust busting." Laissez faire economics had led to a number of "trusts" (monopolies) forming. Carnegie Steel, and other similar trusts came to dominate industries through vertical and horizontal integration. This means that one group of individuals would either
a) be on the boards of all of the major companies invovled in a certain activity or
b) control one activity from start to finish (meaning from the time that the raw materials are produced to the finished product.)
This created a massivly wealthy upper class with considerable power. Pure capitalism breeds monoplies like none other. That's why the government tries to regulate business
Note: Capitialism is still much more effective than communism, socialism, etc. but "a true capitalistic system" doesn't really work either.
it said that the top 2 and 3 most visited sites in the world were "daum.net" and "naver.com"
Korean portal sites.
So, instead of giving false facts, here's what the CIA world factbook says about SOUTH Korea:
Net Migration Rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.) read: no net emigration
Sex Ratio At Birth: 1.09 male(s)/female
Population Growth Rate: 0.62% (2004 est.)
Life Expectancy: total population: 75.58 years male: 71.96 years female: 79.54 years (2004 est.)
Literacy: total population: 97.9% male: 99.2% female: 96.6% (2002)
So, how does that stack up to the US?
Net Migration Rate: 3.41 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.)
Sex Ratio At Birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
Population Growth Rate: 0.92% (2004 est.)
Life Expectancy: total population: 77.43 years male: 74.63 years female: 80.36 years (2004 est.)
Literacy: total population: 97% male: 97% female: 97% (1999 est.)
So, basically - you're full of shit, and we have been trolled. However, I thought your bullshit should be shown for what it is - Bullshit. There is no such country called "Korea." They got pissed at each other and split up into North and South with SOUTH korea resembing the US and NORTH korea resembling a poverty stricken dicatorship. HAND.
Shin Cho, an electronics lecturer at WonKwang University, has a 100-mbps network at his home on the outskirts of Seoul that costs about $20 a month for the broadband.
For those of you who are not impressed by the writer's 1.5mb/s SDSL connection, Iksan, South Korea is a farming town.It also pays for free health care, free education on all levels, social services, excellent public transports etc. Think its safe to say only a small portion has gone into digital infrastructure. Its a question of political will nothing more.
Absolutely, monopolies can form in a true capitalistic system. Microsoft just isn't an example of a monopoly which could exist in a true capitalistic system.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Sounds like Korean teachers make more than U.S. teachers. Which is why it is cheaper in Korea..
Now, could you imagine what would happen if the US had a president that bet 100 billion on the internet?
Yeah, he would would have been lobbied out of office by the MPAA.
blog
I think most people are misunderstanding this. The nominal transfer values for DSL connections are always specified for the "last mile" (I guess that's what it's called) from the switch to the client. That's the nature of this technology/concept. The ISP does not guarantee anything besides these last-mile transfers and what happens beyond is a matter of current load on the network (at least officially, because further traffic shaping politics are likely to be relevant here).
This indeed makes DSL, as you said a home-user type thing as opposed to, say ISDN (which unfortunately has it's limitations).
So far every Korean I've ran into here in S. Korea has a Cellphone and Broadband. Nearly every shop I walk into there is a computer hooked up for surfing during the day's quiet hours.
:-)
Here in Korea, when you get cellphone services, they talk to a representative via MSN Messenger or suitable application to activate your line in real-time without having to pickup a phone.
Osan AB has broadband through out all the dormitories, though SSRT (Samsung Rental) has a monopoly on that so they get away with charging insane costs. Something like $45 just for DSL... and really horrible TOS threatening $1000 fine for running anything resembling a "server." But 300kbps downstream is rather nice coming from the States where I'd be lucky to hit 90kbps.
S. Korea is paradise
-Drache Kubisuro
Much of the telco infrastructure was paid for with taxpayer money. The telcos got the lines and do the maintaining. We get screwed. When the telcos remonopolized T-1 in our area, I was put out of business. The telco has lines going through my property (private property btw), yet I have yet to see a dime in compnsation. I say anything that is run over public property should belong to the public. If it weren't for these cartels making an exhorbitant profit, we could all have broadband for a reasonable price. But as long as the cartels control our government, this will never happen.
Now, could you imagine what would happen if the US had a president that bet 100 billion on the internet?
The RIAA, MPAA, and BSA would ask for a full refund?
there is far more internet penetration and PC's among the populace here than in SK.
Could you please give me some of what you and your mods are smoking because it must be some mighty fine shit.
According to figures gathered by Internet World Stats, in December of 2004 South Korea had Internet penetration of 63.3% while in November of 2004 the United States had Internet pentration of 66.8%.* 3.5% difference in penetration hardly qualifies as "far more" despite the month's differrence in time.
* These numbers were gathered by different organizations. Nielsen in the case of the US and KNIRC in the case of South Korea
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So quit worrying about the US falling behind in broadband.
Actually, the Internet isn't that bad at 56Kb/s if you have strong ad blocking.
One thing that none of these comparisons ever seem to mention is the area of question in contrast to the entire United States. South Korea is slightly larger than Indiana. So i bet we could reach this density and saturation with 11 billion if we focused on Indiana (in persepctive).
Just wanted to point this out since it is relevant.
The articale (in Dutch) is here. Some results are:
Iceland: 45%
Denmark 36%
Netherland 32%
Finland 21%
If population density makes it so easy to provide fast & cheap broadband, why doesn't it exist in New York or San Francisco?
What, it doesn't?
I suggest you get a wifi capable notebook, and stroll the lovely streets of San Fransisco. You'll find an open "hotspot" all over the place.
Heck, in Phoenix, AZ, I'm sitting at a rented condo borrowing some neighbor's hotspot! It's a Linksys, with default p/w.
It's not fiber, but the speed is decent enough that I can stream The Elegant Universe with little to complain about...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
(From the CIA factbook - http://http//www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factboo
But quite few people live here (9 million - compare that to 7 million people living in london)
The reason for the good connectivity in Sweden is that it has been a priority - seen as a infrastructure investment - from the goverments point of view. /. has been stopping communual WiFi blanket projects for some US states (cities?)http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/ 19/0126204&tid=193&tid=1. You could simply say that here the goverment steps in sometimes (seldom) to ensure that the infrastructure is done (and right) and that it is provided in a well mannered way.
Swedes generally believe that some things are better handeled communualy instead of privately, as I've been reading on
(for 3g access that manifests itself as requiring a minimum accessability - areawise and sevicewise - for the privately run operator to fulfill)
Comparing privatism vs. communally doing things is actually quite intresting - there is not always higher efficiency of doing it privately.
My example is the swedish post system (wich was privatized quite recently):
Before there was one post (thus one postman doing his rounds). Today, there are 2 players (at least in rural areas), the original old post and a new uppstart primarily doing rural areas.
This has the following effect on society: First, someone has to pay someone TWICE (total cost for soceity) for delivering to the same adresses in rural areas. Since its privatised it has to be profitable, something we customers have to pay in increased tariffs (porto). Also, since the original post has to compete in the lucurative rural areas and loose buisness to the competition, nobody wants to deliver post to the geograpcal areas sparsely populated (since that delivery is done at a loss), thus crippling the total service overall.
this is only one of many examples I could put fourth (look at the US mobilephone companies for example)
sorry for the spelling misstakes - my swenglish sometimes shows through!
"If it can be thought up, there exists at least one person trying to make it happen for real" - Phil
As long as there is no real competition between providers in the United States there will be higher broadband costs to us.
I can get dsl from my isp for $50 or $80, he gets no break from bell south which will give me the same speeds for $35 and $55.
My city gave exclusive cable rights to the cable company. And they don't share. I can get a faster rate for a bit more money than from my baby bell.
But the baby bells were forced to share thier bandwidth with anyone that wanted a stake. For years they didn't even consider the internet worth the investment so they gave out better rates for the mom n pop isps.
Until the cable companies are forced to do the same, or the telephone companies put in cable, the rates just won't be coming down.
It's all about the money and the cable guys all seem to have the upper hand right now. There are solutions? I wish I knew.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
When I moved to Japan I had a choice of 50 Megabytes or 80 Megabytes. I took the 50 Megabytes because the Voice Over Internet Phone was integrated. You can also watch movies. Not only that Japan is rolling out 10 gigabyte to the house by 2010. If your feeling a little left out over there in generica, it is because you are! I can only imagine that the gulf will continue to worsen and more uses for the truly highspeed will happen every day here, and in generica you will still be gloating over your killer 1.5 megabytes. LOL
You may compare Korea to the US all you want, so I'll compare Korea to the US to Sweden. I guess it is fairly well-known by now here at Slashdot that Sweden has 100 Mbit (full duplex) at most metropolitan areas, and 10 Mbit (full duplex) in quite some more places. Out in the countryside, you may have to make do with 8/1 Mbit ADSL.
The US has 31 people per square kilometer. Sweden has 18. More than one-third less.
The cause is not population density, but a) a lack of people burning for the idea of cheap broadband for everybody (which we did have in Sweden - thanks, Birger), and b) mega-telcos trying fervently to kill any such initiatives.
It would be the end of all kinds of media distribution/production monopolies/oligarchies (landline phones, cable TV, TV stations in general, RIAA, MPAA, etc). Only the most draconian enforcement of copyright law would be able to preserve the content industries we have today. DRM could possibly preserve the software industry as we know it; however music and video DRM is doomed to fail because of the analog hole. The movie industry might survive by using strict security at theaters to eliminate film redistribution, and never releasing to the general public, or only releasing very old movies. But this would be hard to pull off and would remove DVDs as a revenue stream. The music industry as we know it is doomed; it will shrink back down into a concert industry. The book industry will likely be relegated to a printing service for free texts.
I'm not saying that this is all necessarily a good thing or a bad thing; it's just the truth. Personally I feel it will have many bad effects, but the good might outweigh the bad, though it seems inevitable regardless so we'll just have to wait and see.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Your 3rd point made total sense. It can't be any worse when you are stuck with IE to do anything on majority of Korean websites. I give you credit for saying that much.
more than half of the whole population live around Seoul
I'm not sure where you have gotten your figures but simple googling tells me that less than 25% of the whole population is living in Seoul. How far around Seoul are you talking about?
result is that more and more people are just relaxing at on-line rather than outdoors
Again, where do you get this from? if you can call your personal perception as "in-depth", I think you need to look around more. Although what you have said is true to some extent, I see more Koreans finding quite a bit of useful things online. your so called 'weird online communities' do exist, but more have given so many people the power to gather online to extend their thirst for their hobbies, and made it possible for them to go offline with them. So many different types of people being online presenting whatever differences they have... that wouldn't have been possible without the internet at all. Just the speed, amount and ease of everyday information and news presented to Koreans are remarkable. How do you know that people who would have gone out for outdoor activities are lured into being just potato sacs surfing the web? In my opinion, it just gave them more options and information to go even further. And those people not doing anything other than being online would be doing just about same thing even if they didn't have the internet. And being in this less densely populated USofA, how many people do you see that actually scuba dive, go yachting, and wind-surf? How much grasp do you have about the working class of this country? It is not so much about the chances for recreation people have, but rather how they have to make a living. (I know... this is going way off the topic) I just don't get it... how could you be that criticizing with such a narrow vision, criticizing as if nothing good ever came with it. I don't know how you had the chance to come to this country to study, but you are living the better opportunity than that of so many Koreans. And that doesn't give you the right to criticize on how they are living their online lives. You not participating and liking does not make it unuseful. At least have the facts checked before you criticize anything and putting 'in-depth' in the title. Just being a Korean does not qualify!
It pisses me off to see this kind of narrow-minded view is scored 5 for 'insightful.'
Now I have to go blow off some steam playing starcraft over 28.8kbps modem.
Dude, you seriously need to get a life. Stop nitpicking, and find something else to do than whine about an insightful post.
You should all think yourselves incredibly lucky!
;)
Here in the UK, broadband is incredibly expensive.
I pay £25 p/m for 512K/256K 50:1 Uncapped ADSL with 1 StaticIP (Bulldog ADSL http://www.bulldogdsl.com)
Thats about US$47.70 !!!!!
The best price I've seen for a home connection is 4Mb/256k 50:1 for £40 (US$76.34) But you can't get it outside of London and a couple of other Major Cities. I Can't get it and I live in Cardiff... the Capital of Wales!!!
If we want a faster upload speed, we have to pay rediculous sums of money, otherwise we are all stuck at 256k.
I DREAM about broadband at the speeds and prices most of you are quoting.
Unfortunately, with the exception of about 2 or 3 cities, the entire Telecomunications Infrastructure in England, Scotland and Wales (Not Sure about N.Ireland) is owned by one big hulking company - British Telecom (Spit) and they have been dragging their feet for years with regards to opening up their exchanges to other companies.
You are all lucky Gits
British Nick
No good deed ever goes unpunished.
I thought like only 2/3 of Koreans even had electricity to their house.
and even if the US did win against North Korea and gains control there, China won't like it, having a US controlled land right next to them.
that place has been a stalemate for so many years becuse of that, and will remain that way for lord knows when.
This would reduce the need for people to commute as much and the fuel needed to do so.
If less people need to dry to work every day then they might enjoy their weekends more. http://researchmag.asu.edu/stories/smoggy.html
Asians value technology and knowledge. Others value symbolism and image. It's as simple as that.
In all fairness, the article is dated March 2003. So, it's good to see things have improved.
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
Tell me again why I'm supposed to be pissed at them and why I would rather be Canadian? It sure as hell isn't for the accent.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Where are you, Herndon? See if you can get Verizon FIOS. 5Mbps down/2Mbps up for $34.95/mo.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I think so too, but they all got fibre cables into their home for such connection, so I think a few years later they could settle for 100MB/s. Put it that way, last August I saw flyers about broadband speed up to 45Mbps only... Four months later they celebrate the upgrade of service into 100Mbps. God knows how would they improve their rate by their never ceasing engineering work on their network.
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