South Korea was ranked second in the 2008 broadband leadership, conducted by the Saïd Business School at Oxford and the University of Oviedo in Spain, and sponsored by Cisco Systems, the telecommunications equipment maker. This year, however, South Korea retakes the top spot in an annual ranking of broadband quality, achieving a broadband penetration rate of 97 percent and quality score of 66 points, followed by Japan with 64 percent and 64 points, respectively.

The study takes into account the download and upload speeds of Internet connections, rather than simply comparing market penetration rates since the quality of connections has grown more important as online services such as IPTV(Internet Protocol television) are expected to become popular in the near future.

The reason why South Korea was ranked second in the 2008 broadband leadership is that the broadband quality wasn’t good compared with its highest broadband penetration rate in the world. However, with the government’s continuous efforts such as the ultra broadband convergence network(UBcN) plan the broadband quality has been significantly improved as you can see below.

According to the Communications Workers of America, the Korean internet speed is the state of the art. The average US speed is 5.1Mbps, compared with 20.4Mbps in South Korea. With an average increase of 1.6 Mbps in 2 years, it will take 15 years to be on par with the speed Koreans enjoy currently.

In the video below, the organization emphasizes the need of governmental leading. Korea initiates such national plans in the early 2000’s and some success factors are exportable. Contact me to know more.

source : http://www.speedmatters.org/

LG Dacom now second.

After 8 years of constant efforts, LG Dacom conquers again the second position in the competitive Korean fixed-line telecommunication market, beating SK Broadband of few inches in the first half of the year. Between January and June, LG Dacom’s sales reached KRW 895.4 billion ($720 million), while SK Broadband recorded KRW 1.2 billion ($ 963, 000) less than LG Dacom.

LG Dacom ‘s strengthening.

In fact, LG Dacom performed excellent in the second quarter: operating profits grew of 50% on a year-to-year basis and sales boomed. SK Broadband faces financial difficulties  and its operating profitability is deteriorating into negative territory. Hardships rise from high-speed broadband and fixed –line telecommunication markets slowdowns. Moreover, LG Dacom intends to absorb LG Powercom (broadband operator), adding consequent annual revenues. LG Dacom may be on the second step of the podium for a while.