What do South Koreans, Romanians, and the Swiss all have in common? On average, they enjoy faster Internet connection speeds than Americans, according to the quarterly "State of the Internet Report" issued by Akamai, a technology company in Cambridge, Mass., that sells fast data delivery to businesses and other enterprises that put content online. The company looked through its data for an average connection speed throughout the United States and found it to be 3.9 megabits per second, the 18th highest among all countries—meaning that it is well behind first place South Korea, with 14.6 megabits per second. Not only does South Korea have a high average connection speed, it also has a high number of very fast connections: Seventy-four percent of the country's connections are more than 5 megabits per second, a speed that Akamai calls "high broadband." Only 24 percent of U.S. connections qualify as high broadband.
News of this report came out in January, and Extra! Korea beat me to it by about three weeks. The KBS World article notes that Japan came in second, and Hong Kong, Romania, and Sweden round out the top five.
In August we read that the United States is 15 years behind South Korea's internet speed, and I noted that while both Incheon and Narita airports offer free internet access in certain public stations in the airside terminals, at Chicago's O'Hare they were charging five dollars for the first fifteen minutes, $0.33 for each additional minute.
21 comments:
That's pretty sad.
Is it really that important to have the fastest internet in the world though? I guess there are exceptions I guess, like people who depend upon it for work.
I guess it is important if don't have any social skills and can't function in the real world.
Come summer, and often in the winter, the internet is something I rarely think about.
I do believe people without social skills existed before the 1990s. But good job on the awesome cynicism :)
I remember reading somewhere that most of Korea has high speed Internet because the country is relatively compact and densely populated, so it's more efficient to install high speed Internet as compared to say, in rural America.
It would be interesting to compare the portion of homes with these high speed connections, as many here with whom I am personally acquainted actually use PC bangs for their internet usage, even for ordinary tasks, which found surprising. Very few expats here whom I know do the same, preferring service at home.
The geography differences are a legitimate answer to Korea apparently being ahead in across-the-country high-speed, but even if you compare, say, Seoul the city to Los Angeles the city (or the county), you still see a huge difference.
My parents' part of upscale residential Orange County had only dial-up until just a few years ago.
My wireless connection in Canada is BRUTAL. Slow doesn't begin to describe it. I can't wait to get back to my high-speed so I can get some actual work done.
Strange, mine works perfectly fine. At times it doesn't, but it is the internet after all.
Here's a question: If Korea was the size of the the US or Canada, would cell phone and internet service be as good as it is in Korea now?
Chris wrote:
Here's a question: If Korea was the size of the the US or Canada, would cell phone and internet service be as good as it is in Korea now?
Korea and Japan, both touted as having greater high-speed penetration, have higher population densities and smaller areas, but they are both mountainous countries, and it's not as if the US is so much less urban-concentrated.
According to the CIA World Factbook, South Korea is 81% urban, Japan 66%, and the US 82%. In other words, I don't think size is really the issue
In California, the most populous state in the country, for example, one-fourth of the people live in one county, much like Seoul with one-fourth of the population of the entire country, yet Los Angeles County isn't up to speed (下下下 no pun intended) as Seoul.
Still didn't answer the question. It's either yes or no.
I lived in a place that was only accessible by air, or boat in the summer. Does Korea have places like that?
C'mon, size doesn't matter?
Here's some interesting facts...
South Korea- 98,480 sq.km
Japan- 374,744 sq.km
US(land only)- 9,158,960 sq.km
Canada(land only)- 9,093,503 sq.km
Sorry, I know this is something foreigners in Korea say a lot, but size matters.
No, size doesn't matter that much because even if we don't consider that Korea reaches virtually all portions of its territory with high-speed Internet, America's deficit is not just in the rural areas but also in the urban areas, where the US and ROK actually have similar rates of urban population dwelling.
And yes, South Korea has some relatively inaccessible areas. There is an archipelago stretching along the southern and western coasts, with several counties that are made up only of islands. Many of these islands are only accessible by boat, though access is year-round, not seasonal as in some parts of the US or Canada, though bad weather frequently cuts off access. Some distant islands, like Ullŭngdo in the east and Paengnyŏngdo and its neighboring islands, are quite remote, yet they have full access to cellular and high-speed Internet service (as far as I'm aware) and have for some time.
South Korea has nearly full national coverage for cellular service, which is a different matter, and that's something where it would be unfair to compare with the US, but if we were comparing coverage within urban centers, that would be a fair comparison. Similarly, high-speed penetration within urban centers is a fair comparison, and the US is often found wanting. Seriously, my parents in upper middle class Orange County had only dial-up available until just a few years ago.
"I guess it is important if don't have any social skills and can't function in the real world."
I don´t want to be rude... but technologically and socially speaking you are wrong is so many ways...
"Here's a question: If Korea was the size of the the US or Canada, would cell phone and internet service be as good as it is in Korea now"
Please read about their culture. You need to understand their fast-paced culture to understand their quality on any kind of service. And yes.. it would be fast and way better than you ever imagined.
U.S is not perfect... Seoul makes more money that Paris, L.A and New York... we only have to accept the facts to become their competition.
Here's a question: If Korea was the size of the the US or Canada, would cell phone and internet service be as good as it is in Korea now?
Cellphones, yes. Internet, no.
Cellphones: the signal is shooting into space, and the size of the country is not going to change the speed of light.
Internet: way too big to get all that highspeed cable laid as quickly. Maybe many densely-populated urban areas would have lightning-fast connections, but not most of the country in such a short time.
It strikes me in Korea, companies enjoy highly protected markets at the pleasure of the government. You wire up the boondocks when you're guaranteed a rich(er) profit and the government might compel you to (a bit like how postal systems in North America are forced to service unprofitable corners of their nations).
As well, if you're a chaebol you have a bread sells more peanut butter and jam scenario. You create the faster networks. People download the movies you make. People use the home shopping sites you operate. Koreans are also used to getting the latest and greatest. They've very quick to adopt things like DMB, TV over IP, etc.
Finally, why have faster speeds if you're dl/ul is capped? In Korea, as far as I know, KT etc doesn't cap bandwidth. In Canada, I get 95 GB a month. Why do I want a high speed that lets me exceed that in 3 days vs 4 weeks?
Also consider the "last mile" problem. A fast backbone is great but if your city is 90% old established neighborhoods, you're stuck with the copper write, twisted pair, etc. Korea knocks 'em down and builds them up over night. It can easily wire the last mile.
No the Size does not matter
Im in australia and went to korea few times for a business i work in IT industry and i know how this internet works in korea and most of connections they have are the FIBER connection not adsl/vdsl technology..and somehow koreans managed to get fiber all over the country and thats how it's possible but you see if US or Australia want to change to FIBER IT will COST THEM a lot..and buying technology from other country will cost them a lot as well plus.. the phone line AUS uses are the old type lines and will AUS willing to dig all grounds to change to fiber..NO cost them too much!!!!!
so my answer is no technology and no MONEY!
If im president of US or Primeminister for AUS i will get some of our techie to go korea and Learn more technology and stuff...
I would like to know who gave the speeds for Korea, if it was a Korean source then... I was using fiber optic cable in Korea and it was slower than ADSL back home. I spoke to one of my adult students who was a local technician and he said that fiber optic only ran to the pole outside and then it went through a device to convert it to cable to the apartment. This saves the cost of fiber optic 'modems'. He told me that the conversion ate away at the speed significantly. Bandwidth sharing and distance from provider also have a huge influence on speed. If you live in a compact city you might be getting great speeds with a cable but this is not representative of the whole country. Any honest report will give detailed information about their sampling techniques.
Misinformation: For years in Korea they were proporting to have high-band Internet to the rest of the world when in fact they were using ADSL and when asked about cable they had no knowledge of the technology.
Currently my Internet is on an apartment LAN so the speed will vary greatly so I could quote very good and very poor speeds depending on the network load.
Believe half of what you hear and none of what you read (especially...).
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