Measuring the Information Society: Korea's Broadband Network Ranks Number 1

A headline in the People's Daily Online caught my attention today. It read "South Korea's Broadband Network Most Developed." As with media coverage elsewhere in the world, this headline derived from a report issued by the International Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, an IT think-tank established in the United States in 2006. The mission of this think tank is to ". . . formulate and promote public policies to advance technological innovation and productivity internationally, in Washington, and in the states. Recognizing the vital role of technology in ensuring American prosperity, ITIF focuses on innovation, productivity, and digital economy issues."

In its report "Explaining International Broadband Leadership," ITIF released rankings that are based on three measures: broadband penetration, speed and price. This ranking places Korea solidly in first place, with Japan coming in second, and the United States ranking 12th. More interesting than the rankings per se is the analysis in the longer report of why countries rank as they do. For example, the report notes that because " . . . over 50 percent of South Koreans live in large, multitenant apartment buildings makes it significantly cheaper on a per-subscriber basis to roll out fast broadband there compared to the United States, where many people live in single-family suburban homes." With reference to Korea and the other leading broadband nations, the report notes that leadership, incentives, competition and demand-side policies are all important.

South Korea's International Patent Filings Continue Growth

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, 2007 saw a record number of international patent applications, a total of 156,100. South Korea ranked fourth in the world, behind the United States, Japan and Germany, as shown in the accompanying graphic (click to enlarge). Korea and China were the leading sources of patent filings in Northeast Asia and their rate of growth in patent applications from 2006 to 2007 was much higher than other countries around the world. “The growth in patent filings by a number of countries in north east Asia and their share of overall patenting activity is impressive and confirms shifting patterns of innovation around the world,” said Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General of WIPO. He further noted that “Strategic use of the patent system is a business imperative in today’s knowledge-driven economy. The success of the PCT is largely due to the sustained use of the system by some of the world’s foremost innovation-based companies.” The largest proportion of these applications published in 2007 related to the telecommunications (10.5%), information technology (10.1%) and pharmaceuticals (9.3%) sectors. The fastest growing technology areas are nuclear engineering (24.5% increase) and telecommunications (15.5%). The list of the world's top fifty organizations applying for patents included LG Electronics (13th) and Samsung Electronics (20th), LG Chemical (36th) and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) (41st).

North Korea's Moment for Mobile?

• The announcement last month by Egypt's Orascom Telecom that it had won a 3G license to construct mobile phone networks in North Korea bears close scrutiny. According to press reports, the company's subsidiary CHEO Technology, a joint venture 75 per cent owned by Orascom and 25 per cent owned by North Korea’s state-run Korea Post and Telecommunications, won the right to provide mobile phone services using 3G technology. This announcement was tantalizing news, for several key reasons.
• First among them is the recent history of North Korea's involvement with mobile communications. When China began building cell-phone relay stations along the North Korean border in 2003, the use of mobile phones with pre-paid cards became a hot black market item in North Korea. Defectors from North Korea have widely reported the use of cell phones to communicate with their families. The response of the North Korean government was an attempt to ban the use of mobile phones, including increased patrols using devices that detect cell-phone signals. Yet, in early 2005 Rebecca MacKinnon speculated in Yale Global Online that cell phone technology was poised to "re-shape the North Korean world view - seen through the Chinese peephole." In 2008, it remains "poised." To date, the North Korean government has shown its fear, politically speaking, of the free flow of information that cellular technology affords.
• A second reason for interest in Orascom's announcement is that it includes plans to invest more than $400 million in infrastructure over the next three years, providing mobile phone service to North Koreans in all of their major cities. Should this happen, it will be a start toward erasing the world's most egregious digital divide, that between North and South Korea. Such a step is long overdue. However, such modern infrastructure comes with a price, that the leadership of North Korea must certainly understand. Any modern communications, network, particularly if it brings access to the internet, will also aid those who seek democratization.
• Finally, this announcement raises some interesting questions about China's influence on the modernization of North Korea's communications networks, versus the influence of South Korea. I think there is little question that the Korean language will be dominant within North Korean communications for some time to come. However, it finds itself today sandwiched between China and a lively South Korean democracy in which information flows freely through advanced networks and whose major coporations operate globally. To eventually reunify with the South Korea of "ubiquitous networks," it seems that the North will need to veer away from China's policy of attempting to control the internet toward the manner in which the South has embraced it.

The ITU's Digital Opportunity Index--Korea Ranks Number One in the World

For the past several years, South Korea has ranked number one in the world on the ITU's Digital Opportunity Index (DOI). For that reason alone it is worth understanding what this index is and what it measures. The index is based on 11 ICT indicators, grouped in 3 clusters: opportunity, infrastructure and utilization, as illustrated in the accompanying graphic (click the graphic for larger version).

Moreover, the DOI is an outgrowth of the World Summit on the Information Society meetings organized by the ITU. Among the dominant concerns at these meetings was the digital divide and the degree to which developing as well as developed nations could achieve digital opportunity. In the Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, participants decided that, in an ideal world, digital opportunity would mean:

• The whole population having easy access to ICTs at affordable prices;
• All homes equipped with ICT devices;
• All citizens having mobile ICT devices; and
• Everyone using broadband.

As one can see from a glance at the world map, digital opportunity currently varies greatly from country to country and regionally. A couple of points deserve to be emphasized about South Korea's world-leading ranking on the DOI index. First, the index contains a strong measure of infrastructure. The presence and pervasiveness of an infrastructure, or we might say the ubiquity of a network, is a necessary precondition for the equitable flow of information among all citizens in an information society. Second, the "opportunity" which concerns the ITU is opportunity for all citizens, to access information, not simply the question of whether the new networks contribute to economic growth. Third, this index does not incorporate measures of literacy and education, but the inclusion of such data would in all likelihood bolster South Korea's standing. Fourth and finally, one would hope that somehow an index like DOI could be related to the language in which information is accessed, processed and used. The incoming administration in Seoul argues that English has become the lingua franca and therefore Korea needs to mount a major effort to improve English ability precisely in order to improve productivity. If 90 percent of the information on the internet today is in English, is fluency in that language a pre-requisite to true digital opportunity?