Saturday, January 29, 2011

Speed: The Giga-Korea Project

Recent posts have noted South Korea's continued world leadership in broadband internet connection speeds, and its demonstration outside the lab of a new, fast advanced-LTE technology.  To place this country's emphasis on internet speed, present and future, in context one needs to consider the newly-announced Giga-Korea project.  Under the banner of "Giga Korea," both the private and public sectors will push ahead with a mega-scale network R&D plan from 2012 to 2020. By means of it, the government intends to turn Korea into the country where the world’s finest mobile telecom service is provided.
As reported by The Electronic Times, the KCC (Korea Communications Commission) and Knowledge Economy Ministry announced the three-phased blueprint to achieve mobile communication leadership for the future on January 26. The participants, including several other ministries, are going to come up with the relevant details by the middle of this year. The total budget for the project amounts to 10 trillion won.

3 comments:

  1. Of that 10 trillionhow much will the government fork out and how much will be left to operators?

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  2. According to Ministry reports, it appears the exact figures have not yet been decided upon. However, the lion's share of the costs for actual network buildout will be borne by local service operators, while the government money will primarily to into R&D. Further, more specific comments on this topic are welcome.

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  3. Thank you for your reply. Considering KT has so far been unable to migrate the majority of its 50 Megabit broadband subscribers to the more expensive 100 Megabit service, I doubt they will be in a rush to splurge on infrastructure for this so called giga internet. I suppose how it will depend just how much the government can influence them to do so.

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