VoIP Development in Korea
Posted: December 26th, 2007, by Yunho Chung
A major strangler for the growth of VoIP in Korea so far has been that people who want the service have to change their number. The for Koreans odd prefix 070- has been considered something unprofessional and the quality has been questioned. Traditionally the prefix is important in Korea and have been showing which service provider you are using or where you live. Many are very brand loyal, particularly towards SK which is the company behind the 011- prefix.
However, the only christmas gift for VoIP was not only the possibility with number portability. The tariff for using the copper lines for the VoIP providers will be lowered with 30% making VoIP even more economically beneficial. These two changes will most likely increase the pace of the evolution into a VoIP based voice communication in Korea. However, 2008 will not be the year when VoIP becomes dominant in the fixed side but it might be the year for a takeoff. We can expect the big breakthrough somewhere around 2010.
Today, VoIP constitutes about 10% of the total fixed phone market but all of the heavy players have VoIP options. KT, LG, SK (including Hanaro) and other SO’s are all offering some sort of bundled services. They are also starting to focus more on the private customers after been emphasizing on the business customers.
