Broadband: How South Korea leads the way
Published: 28 Jul 2004 15:55 BST
Although its economy is still struggling, South Korea has made significant progress with many forms of digital technology. Citizens can get "video on demand" online, often even with high-definition video, for less than Americans pay to rent a DVD. Low-income students use high-speed Net connections to take free tutorials for the national aptitude test, an SAT-like exam that can determine college admissions and future job paths.
Online gaming is a massive cultural phenomenon, with three TV channels dedicated to the subject and good players attaining the fame of American sports stars. In addition, South Koreans spent more than $1.6bn shopping online in the first quarter of 2004, or about twice as much per capita as US residents.
"The vision of a broadband society is already here in Korea," said Eric Kim, executive vice president of global marketing operations at Samsung Electronics. "We are two to three years ahead in wireless broadband, and people are using it, too."
The country's achievements are even more impressive considering its starting point in technology. In 1995, less than 1 percent of South Korean residents used the Internet, though a larger number subscribed to proprietary Korean-language networks that were somewhat like the closed CompuServe and America Online networks of the late 1980s. By 2004, more than 71 percent of South Korean households subscribed to broadband Net services, according to local estimates.
The decision to focus on broadband began in the mid-1990s and intensified after South Korea's economy was crippled by the collapse of the Asian financial markets in 1997, when policy makers targeted technology as a key sector for restoring the country's economic health.
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