South Korea Wants 1Gbps Internet By 2012
Not even a week after Britain promised to provide its entire nation
with broadband access over the next few years, South Korea has
introduced a similar plan in order to keep up with the proverbial
Joneses. According to a new plan from the Korea Communications
Commission, it's looking to improve the nation's already stellar IT
infrastructure. The ambitious initiative is calling for total spending of
34.1 trillion won ($24.6 billion) over the next five years, with the
Korean central government putting up 1.3 trillion won and the remainder
coming from private telecom operators.
Obviously, a plan such as this is pretty wide ranging, though the
highlight change is that "high-speed Internet and wireless broadband
services will be upgraded to
1Gbps broadband and 10Mbps, meaning their speeds will increase by 10
times compared to current services." Furthermore, existing
communications networks will also be enhanced to Internet
protocol-based systems, and an official from KT (South Korea's biggest
landline phone operator) noted that "under the plan, we won’t have to
give up our landline phone business
right away, and the mainstream is Internet telephony service, so we
think the plan is positive."
As if you weren't already convinced of the value here, the KCC has also
announced the improvement will make HDTV signals up to 16 times
clearer, and interactive TV services such as e-commerce and home
schooling will become entirely more feasible. As it stands, some 94
percent of Korean households already have access to broadband internet,
but obviously, those 94 percent need to connect at an even faster rate.