While S Korea govt turned crisis into tech revolution PAP might
turn crisis into social erosion, if they opt for the casino!
The future is South Korea
Tech firms try out latest in world's most wired society
Birgitta Forsberg, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 13, 2005
If you live in South Korea, it is an everyday reality to have
always-
on superfast Internet -- broadband -- both in your cell phone and
in
your home.
South Korea is the most wired country on the planet. Some
South
Koreans can get up to 20 megabits of data per second --
breakneck
speed by today's standards. Americans are lucky if they get 4
Mbps.
While South Korea leads in the rollout of broadband, the
United
States --
supposedly the world's technology leader -- comes in no better
than
No. 13, according to experts. About 76 percent of households
have
broadband in South Korea. The figure is 30 percent in the
United
States.
Broadband widens the digital data pipeline to allow
complicated
files, including pictures, graphics and video, to be downloaded
at
near-instant speed. Experts consider the development of
broadband
networks to be the single most important step for expanding
digital
technology and bringing cutting-edge computer applications
directly
into people's lives.
While broadband is usually associated with computers, wireless
phones
are also an important part of the picture. Here the situation
is
similar to computers. Some 75 percent of South Koreans have a
mobile
phone, compared with 60 percent of Americans. And South
Koreans
generally do more and cooler things with their phones.
"There is no point in Korea where you can stand without receiving
a
signal," said Joy King, director of industry marketing at
Hewlett-
Packard. "In the U.S., we are still at the
'can-you-hear-me-now'
level. When Europe and Asia are moving to multimedia text
messaging,
the U.S. has just started text messages. The U.S. is a Third
World
country in this aspect."
Silicon Valley used to be hailed as the world's high-tech
capital.
Now many consider South Korea the king.
"From my perspective, Silicon Valley does not have that role.
The
lead is in Asia, in Korea and Japan, no question," King said.
South Korea has managed to leapfrog the United States in both
broadband and mobile phone usage thanks to a population density
that
makes connectivity easier and government policies that
promote
development. South Korea also has a culture where people are
crazy
about playing online games and don't go home after work.
Instead,
they go to dinner, to karaoke or to a bar -- all the while
using
their mobile phones.
U.S. technology leaders are sounding the alarm that the nation
is
falling dangerously behind in broad areas of digital
innovation,
including broadband.
Last week, technology executives affiliated with the lobbying
group
TechNet traveled to Washington to press for government policies
that
would promote broadband development.
The U.S. information superhighway has turned into a "bumpy,
two-lane
country road" compared with broadband development in other
countries,
the group said.
Future is now in South Korea
As Silicon Valley's biggest corporations complain about the
relative
backward state of broadband in this country, they are rushing
to
South Korea to see if their products pass muster with some of
the
world's most demanding technology customers.
Silicon Valley companies view South Korea as a sort of time
machine
when testing broadband applications, a place where they can get
a
glimpse of what Americans will use in the future.
Samsung, the giant South Korean electronics company, tests its
new
products in Korea first for six to eight months. "It collects
feedback from customers (to) remodel and fix things before
introducing the products worldwide," said Jong Kap Kim,
executive
director of South Korea's iPark Silicon Valley. "And several
U.S.
companies are doing the same."
Microsoft brought MSN Mobile, which enables instant messaging
on
mobile phones, to South Korea two years ago. It introduced
the
service in the United States six months later.
"It's still much more popular in Korea," said Brooke Richardson,
MSN
lead product manager. "It's not only that the U.S. is not so
advanced
in broadband. Mobile phone usage is not so high here either. MSN
is
bridging the two worlds of PCs and mobile phones, and Korea has
that
connectivity. We have incubated some of our stuff in Korea,
like
mobile instant messaging and mobile e-mail. We have also
launched
services there that the rest of the world was not ready for."
For example, with MSN Messenger, Koreans use avatars, a cartoon
that
represents them online. When your friends see your avatar, they
know
you're online and instant messaging.
"Basically, customers in Korea buy a virtual person. For a small
fee,
they can buy clothes, shoes and purses for it," Richardson
said.
Crisis turned tech revolution
South Korea's success story began when the country was hit by
a
financial crisis in 1997 and 1998.
"At that time, the Korean government turned to the high-tech
industry
as a solution to overcome the crisis. Broadband was a new market
with
new demand for modems, routers, servers, computers, a new
infrastructure. It caused a lot of activity and created many
jobs,"
iPark Silicon Valley's Kim said.
The South Korean government ensured competition by ending
state-owned
Korea Telecom's monopoly. The government spent billions of
dollars
building a fiber grid, reaching schools and government buildings,
and
offered another billion in financial incentives to phone
companies
that strung broadband links to homes. Tough competition drove
prices
down, demand surged and the country was on a roll.
South Korea is also a small country where 30 percent of its
48.6
million inhabitants live in the three main cities -- and most of
them
in dense apartment blocks.
"It's unbelievable dense," said Ward Hanson, a research fellow at
the
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research who recently
returned
from a visit to South Korea.
"When you drive in to Seoul along the Han River you see thousands
of
high- rise buildings, 20 to 30 stories high. It's much like
Manhattan
in New York, but even denser than that."
And it is much cheaper and much easier to wire an apartment
building
than a typically spread-out U.S. city and its suburbs, not to
mention
the nation's vast rural areas.
Experts also point to computer games as a crucial catalyst
for
Korea's explosive broadband growth.
"Until very recently, Korea strictly limited impact of
Japanese
culture, remembering the colonial Japan, and prohibited
videos,
movies, video games and PlayStations from Japan," Hanson
said. "Koreans therefore played PC games and a whole industry
with
game parlors grew. Now there are more than 100,000. And if
you
competed with somebody who had broadband, you were killed."
Why U.S. lags in broadband
President Bush has said all Americans should have access to
broadband
by 2007. To reach that goal, he has promised to remove
bureaucratic
obstacles. But, unlike the Korean government, his administration
is
not pumping money into the market.
HP's King cites several reasons for slow broadband
development. "North America is lagging because first of all it
didn't
have one underlying standard, " she said. "Secondly (it's
lagging)
because the government has not really invested directly in
infrastructure. "
And, because Americans go home after work, "the lifestyle
doesn't
create as much demand for certain services," she noted.
Hanson said he doubts that the United States will reach its
broadband
goals by 2007.
"In Korea, competition has been a driving force. In the U.S.,
you
often only have one cable company, and the company is not forced
to
upgrade its speed," he said. "I have had DSL for three years and
I
have never been approached about an upgrade. In Korea, you can
even
watch television on DSL.
"What we have now is good for print, but multimedia is very
challenging. We haven't invested in infrastructure the way
other
countries have. If you have very high speed, the whole system
upgrades around that, you get applications for it, and
congestions
and bugs get fixed," Hanson said.
South Korea goes Wi-Bro
Right now South Korea is changing over to wireless broadband,
Wi-Bro,
and it will also have digital multimedia broadcasting.
"While I drive my car, I can enjoy my cellular phone that
broadcasts
over the Internet while I simultaneously have Yahoo map service
up,"
Kim said. "I can just switch between the two. The tests are
already
done, companies will start selling these applications around
midyear."
The Korean government has a strategy designed to push the nation
into
the next generation of broadband applications.
It calls for the introduction of eight new services, one of them
Wi-
Bro, which will require building three networks. That
infrastructure,
in turn, will pave the way for nine fast-growing technologies,
such
as digital TV and multimedia broadcasting. The program aims to
help
raise Korean gross domestic product to $20,000 per capita
from
$12,600 in 2003, the latest available figure. In the United
States,
GDP per capita was $40,000 in 2004.
One of South Korea's nine new technology sectors is a
computerized
appliance, called a ubiquitous robotic companion, which you
could
carry with you to connect to the Internet wherever you are.
Whether or not these applications will be popular, it is clear
that
South Korea has created an environment where technology
development
is very fast.
And the South Koreans are using their domestic market as a
stepping
stone into the world. Korea's information technology sector
accounted
for exports of $75 billion in 2004.
South Korean company SK Telecom supports rollouts of wireless
broadband services in other Asian countries. "We are also
expanding
our experience to the U.S.," said SK Telecom Vice President
Wonhee
Sull, citing a joint venture with Internet service provider
EarthLink
in Atlanta.
While South Korea has focused on consumer products, HP's King
said
she sees an opportunity for the United States in business
tools.
"The U.S. may be able to regain its footing as a leader in
offering
services to enterprises. This goes nicely with the U.S. focus
on
capitalism and business," she said.
