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Wi-Fi in Korea

 
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kiddblount



Joined: 12 Mar 2003
Location: Seoul

PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2003 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Captain Obvious 2.0 wrote:

WiFi? Korea is #1. It's a fragmented mess in the U.S. that's borderline useless for some, and completely useless for everyone else.


Would you happen to know what standard is most common there (802.11b), and if one might be able to bring a laptop in to connect at a PC bang? Also, what are the approximate monthly costs for DSL?
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JackSarang



Joined: 28 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2003 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't bring your own laptop to a PC Bang. You use their computers.

As for home DSL, its about 35,000 won a month.
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Hank Scorpio



Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Ann Arbor, MI

PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2003 3:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Captain Obvious 2.0 wrote:

WiFi? Korea is #1. It's a fragmented mess in the U.S. that's borderline useless for some, and completely useless for everyone else.


That's easy enough to understand, compared to the size of the US, Korea is a shoebox. We've still got a whole lot of empty space in America, and WiFi connections are naturally easier to find in areas of congestion. You can find an open 802.11b connection in New York city much easier than you could in North Dakota.

Besides which, I've never understood how "being wired" naturally makes one's country a better place. For all of their access to information Koreans still don't really know about the outside world and still believe what their horrible, horrible media tells them.
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Captain Obvious 2.0



Joined: 09 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2003 4:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="Hank Scorpio"]
Captain Obvious 2.0 wrote:

That's easy enough to understand, compared to the size of the US, Korea is a shoebox. We've still got a whole lot of empty space in America, and WiFi connections are naturally easier to find in areas of congestion. You can find an open 802.11b connection in New York city much easier than you could in North Dakota.


It's more that in the U.S., the great plan was that everyone would put up transmitters everywhere out of the kindness of their heart. Given long enough, it would have happened. But it's slow in unfolding. Then add to this the great clampdown on bandwidth. That pretty much killed the dream of free wireless everywhere.

Now a thousand different companies are all trying to cash in on the pay-per-use plan. Go to a Starbucks, pay for the day and sign up an account. Go to the pub after work, repeat the process. Stop in at a restaurant at lunch, repeat the process. It's cost prohibitive, time consuming and useless.

Compare this to the NESPOT service from KT. I get a transmitter at my apartment that anyone with a NESPOT ID can log into. An ID costs 10,000 Won a month. So now not only can I use my laptop with wireless in my apartment, I can take it around.

The NESPOT service only started a couple months ago. So far I have been able to use my laptop at the school, a Lotteria where I sometimes eat lunch, and at both Songnae and Juan stations where I wait for people sometimes. And coverage will only improve as more people sign up for the wireless transmitters.

Quote:
Besides which, I've never understood how "being wired" naturally makes one's country a better place. For all of their access to information Koreans still don't really know about the outside world and still believe what their horrible, horrible media tells them.


It made my world a lot better being here. Plus everyone I know in Korea seems to shop online and do a lot of banking online. Plus email and chatting. Open communication changes things over time, and as such will evolve Korea over time as well.
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Dan



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA

PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2003 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

koreans only base that "most wired" nonsense on one statistic

Korea has the highest penetration of broadband in the world. i don't know if that is still true, but that was what they meant. I forget the exact number but 30% of households have broadband.

most wired is a bunch of bull. koreans use of technology in the work place is very basic.

anyway, even if many households have broadband, the only ones that use it is the kids to play crazy arcade.
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Captain Obvious 2.0



Joined: 09 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2003 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan wrote:
koreans only base that "most wired" nonsense on one statistic

Korea has the highest penetration of broadband in the world. i don't know if that is still true, but that was what they meant. I forget the exact number but 30% of households have broadband.


By 30%, you mean 70-80%. They hit 10 million residential broadband connections nearly a year ago and were still going strong enrolling a couple hundred thousand a month. There are only 14 million houses and apartments in the entire country.

By comparison, the U.S. has something like a 50% connection rate for even a dial-up modem. Broadband in the U.S. connects to less than 10% of households. (last number I read was 5% or so last summer).

Quote:
most wired is a bunch of bull. koreans use of technology in the work place is very basic.

anyway, even if many households have broadband, the only ones that use it is the kids to play crazy arcade.


I lived with a homestay for four months, and they did a hell of a lot more on the computer than just play games. Hell, the local DVD store on the corner has their entire inventory online with what's in or rented just for example. Online banking, shopping, bill payments, and everything promised in the U.S. you can do online, they actually use here.

If I recall correctly, the online sales in Korea equals that of the online sales in North America. Especially shocking when you think that Korea has 15% of the population and a lower per-person income level.
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PootyTang



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Valley of the sun

PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:



WiFi? It's a fragmented mess in the U.S. that's borderline useless for some, and completely useless for everyone else.




That is a sweeping statement. My company manufactures a device that allows home users with broadband (Cable & ADSL) to network their computers with 80211.b & g. We are selling our product through every Bell in the US. Our business is exploding.

Wireless is huge.
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Captain Obvious 2.0



Joined: 09 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PootyTang wrote:


That is a sweeping statement. My company manufactures a device that allows home users with broadband (Cable & ADSL) to network their computers with 80211.b & g. We are selling our product through every Bell in the US. Our business is exploding.

Wireless is huge.


I mentioned how it was expected that slowly over time that so many people would buy wireless networks for their houses or apartments that you could essentially go anywhere and get a free connection to the Internet on your wireless device.

Then came the great clampdown on bandwidth. While you've been here in Korea enjoying unlimited bandwidth, damn near every ISP in the U.S. and Canada has set up limits of 5GB a month or less.

With a 5GB cap, people are NOT going to share their Internet connection to the world. So while I am here, I will share my connection with the world, but when I return and forced to live under the 5Gb cap off goes the open connection and everything is restricted to computers I own.
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Bulsajo



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a 10GB cap with a charge of $10 Cdn for each GB over 10. Still a great deal- I'm downloading lots of large files like movies, software, games etc. as well as having lots of PtoP uploading of my files and haven't hit the cap yet. Even if I do, $10 per GB isn't a big deal and well worth it (since I'm basically stealing software and movies).

On the other hand, a Korean guy I know (immigrated last year with his wife and 2 boys) recently got dinged to the tune of $375 from Sympatico- it's a long story, but in a nutshell they didn't properly notify him of the charges accruing nor more importantly the change in policy (i.e. the introduction of a measly 5 GB cap; it doesn't go very far for a family of 4 with 2 computers and two teen-aged boys who are downloading every Korean song and movie in existence). I told him to fight it in small claims court, but being a new immigrant he was worried and just felt he should pay to get it done with even though he thought it was very unfair. You can be sure he has cut off his kids from PtP!

And to round the whole thing off my ISP is a small outfit that buys extra bandwidth off of Bell Canada (i.e.- Sympatico) and turns around and sells it cheaper than Sympatico does and with a larger cap.

The moral of the story is true for the US, Canada, and Korea- choose your ISP wisely!
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