Comments on: South Korea leads the way

special report Washington can learn some valuable lessons about broadband from Seoul.

maybe the competition isn't everything...

Being a korean, myself, I think I know pretty well about my country. Comparing koreans to people in other countries, if anyone who has been to korea would know what koreans are. People like to do what others do. If one starts to run a business on, for example, a shoe store, then next morning there will be another one right acrossed the street. Let us say this can be interpretated as competition, but this is not it. Even on this article he/she mentioned about cyworld. This explains us more than enough that what really koreans are like. My concern is that I haven't explained things clear enough BUT if you have or are living in Korea for some time, then you would have noticed.

South Koreans Blown Away by American Broadband Prices

At one point I was working within an ADSL group at a major semiconductor company and a handful of engineers from South Korea were visiting our site for training. They were complaining about paying 50 dollars for 8 Mbps service. I printed out the rates for one of the baby bells and they no longer had anything to complain about.

South Korea's population density definitely gives it an advantage when it comes to providing high rate DSL service. I agree with the article that their government has played a major role in their broadband explosion. However, their success still does not convince me that broadband Internet access is a necessity and not a luxury.

[KDoggMDF]

Reply

****, I'd pay 50 a month for 8mbps. Thats a damn steal to me. I pay 40 a month for 3.5mbps DSL and cable around my neighborhood blows. So yeah. lol. Wish the US could do something like Korea tho and give us 10mbps for like 30 a month. That'd be nice...:-)

Korean internet takeup

I would think that high internet usage would be a positive step for any society. The internet offers such a wide breath of information for almost any topic, with divergent views etc.

I would rather see my children, play some online game or similar activity, being somewhat creative instead of getting a tainted world view watching MTV or similar.

Blog site on Korean cyberdevelopment

I'm in Korea for the summer studying many of these issues,
focusing on how Seoul is emerging as the world's most
important broadband metropolis.

The site is http://urban.blogs.com/seoul

South Korea's not the only one.

Every major cable provider in Canada has at least 5Mbps speeds on their standard packages. Some actually offer 10Mbps cable. The average price for a 5Mbps cable connection in Canada is about $30USD, with most providers offering an unlimited cap option for a few dollars more.

[Mark Morrill]

Beat me to the punch :)

For years now, Canada has been a better Internet haven than the
States. Which brings into question the belief that you need high
population densities to support a reasonable net connection. We
have about the population of California.

I've been baffled by the cost and the slowness of "broadband"
products offered in the States. Dial-up? Only if you are rural.