Segmentation Fault: Core dumped..;-)

What would it be like when 100 Mbps Internet connections at home are common…

Posted : February 22, 2005 at 2:37 pm [America/Los_Angeles]

[via PC World: Greetings From the Most Connected Place on Earth]

When my wife and I arrived here last fall to teach English, we stepped into perhaps the most Internet-crazed country in the world. What tipped us off? Well, one example is that South Korea has a high school where students train in the game Starcraft like Texas high schoolers practice football…

And if you need ultrafast Internet access, it’s available. Shin Cho, an electronics lecturer at WonKwang University, has a 100-mbps network at his home on the outskirts of Seoul that costs about $20 a month for the broadband. “The reason that we can have this system at home is that the cost of PCs and Internet service is pretty affordable for most families in Korea,” he says. The Korean government is planning on having this level of broadband available to all of Korea by 2010.

Cho says that the main user of their connection is his aunt, who uses it for shopping and for staying connected to her online community of photographers. “They exchange photos and view each other’s work in the community,” he says. Online communities such as Cyworld are extremely popular in Korea.

I took an informal survey of one of my classes of adult college students and professionals–80 percent of them had a broadband connection. And even though they’re fluent in English, it took a couple minutes to clarify the term “broadband” because that’s the only type of Internet connection available. When asked if they had ever used a dial-up connection, In Me So, a computer science major at WonKwang University said, “I remember using a 56K modem once, about eight years ago.”

PC World: Greetings From the Most Connected Place on Earth

Until I live in a country that gives me such a connection, 1.5 Mbps sounds just about fine to me

- Anand

Category: Internet Adoption across the Globe |