South Korea: 100Mbps is ‘ordinary’

Kim Jong Il

Having the world’s fastest broadband connection at your beck and call might seem pretty sweet to us limeys who consider getting anything resembling 10Mbps to be something of a luxury. However the majority of South Koreans, who enjoy maximum speeds of around 100Mbps – ten times that amount – apparently rate their broadband services as ‘ordinary’ according to a recent survey carried out by the Seoul-sponsored Korean Communications Commission (KCC).

Refreshingly, it’s good to know that even over in the Land of the Morning Calm, there is a disparity between advertised figures and the actual figure achieved by most households, where the maximum speed actually achieved by customers using the fastest connection is in fact 91Mbps, with the average speed available clocking in at around 46Mbps, less than half the advertised theoretical maximum.

And, like in the UK, the South Korean broadband scene is dominated by a handful of providers. The seven broadband tigers of the Korean peninsula, providing high-speed connections to over 15 million subscribers are headed by Korea Telecom, who control 44.2 per cent of the market, followed by Hanarotelecom with 24 per cent and LG Powercomm (who provided the fastest speeds) with 12.2 per cent.

Kim Young-wan of Korea Telecom stated that: “The rate at which high-speed internet customers are increasing has slowed down a lot. That is why internet service providers are looking for new revenue sources such as internet telephony and IPTV services.”

Again, not too different from how things are over here, with Sky, Virgin Media, BT and Tiscali all boasting value-added digital TV options, along with Orange and O2 who are still dipping their toes into the water.

“This encourages service providers to compete against one another to improve the overall quality of such products,” said KCC representative Lee Eun-hee in a statement given to the Joongang Daily newspaper, a sort of South Korean Daily Mail.

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