Seoul is now, officially, completely wired. Literally, 100% of homes are now connected to broadband according to the Korean government.
Looking at the table below, clearly, this is due to multiple lines in some households, or a minor blurring of commercial/residential subscriber data. I've just received this data from Najin Jun, a graduate student at the University of Delaware, summarizing the Korean government's latest city-level broadband penetration statistics. Korea is just about the only country I know that publishes this kind of detailed geographic breakdown of residential broadband penetration, and it's just amazing. As I've said before, South Korea (and Seoul in particular) has about a 10-year lead in broadband deployment over the US and much of the rest of the developed world. As always, its still a place worth visiting for insight into broadband culture.
p.s. Isn't Korean the coolest looking language on earth? It's also incredibly logical and easy to learn - its the only alphabet that was ever designed, not organically evolved over history.
Any data on wireless access in Seoul? It seems like 100% broadband could pretty easily translate into close-to-100% wifi coverage, even if just a fraction of folks left their connections open... but maybe with broadband so deep there's actually less of a need for wifi.
I ask because, on the 'look at South Korea to see the future' note, I'm curious about what becomes possible when wifi is (close to) ubiquitous.
Posted by: Robin | April 12, 2007 at 03:40 PM