AfterDawn: News

South Korea moving to 1 gigabit Internet connections

The New York Times is reporting that South Korea is preparing to increase their already fast Internet speeds.

South Korea already has the fastest residential speeds in the world, with every household having a connection that downloads at about 16 Mbits per second.



Reads the report: "By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That would be a tenfold increase from the already blazing national standard and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States."

While South Koreans download at over 16 Mbits per second, the average American is running a much slower connection at 4.6 Mbits per second. There are, of course, 100 Mbit connections in the U.S., but they are certainly not commonplace.

While having superior speeds, South Koreans also pay less, paying the equivalent of $38 USD per month. The average American is paying $46 per month for their connection.

A bigger list of average speeds found here: Global Internet connection speeds

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 27 Jan 2012 18:40

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• 8 comments

• deak91

  TAKE NOTICE INTERNET COMPANIES IN THE U S one more thing we are falling behind in all because every step of the way your looking to gouge our wallet to death
  

  27.1.2012 21:15 #1

• ivymike

  +1

  27.1.2012 21:19 #2

• Hopium

  its hard to compare a country the size of Mississippi infrastructure to the u.s. south korea prolly doesn't have to run lines across the countryside with not a single customer for miles. its was my problem when i lived out in the boonies. it just wasnt cost effective to lay 5 miles of fiber for 1 customer on my road. so you have adsl running slowing the national average. also it doesn't note whether its a state run service or not. which is a big deal! i'd rather have 10mb from comcast or time warner then 1gbps from usisp.gov

  27.1.2012 22:00 #3

• DDR4life

  @Hopium
  I was about to argue the point. That is until I read that last part. That quickly took the wind out of my sails.
  

  28.1.2012 03:29 #4

• nbfreak2

  Wow the U.S. is falling behind!!
  

  28.1.2012 08:06 #5

• ChikaraNZ

  Originally posted by Hopium: its hard to compare a country the size of Mississippi infrastructure to the u.s. south korea prolly doesn't have to run lines across the countryside with not a single customer for miles. its was my problem when i lived out in the boonies. it just wasnt cost effective to lay 5 miles of fiber for 1 customer on my road. Very true, other small countries liek Hong Kong, Singapore, are able to do this cost effectively too because they can reach the vast majority of the population relatively cheaply.
  
  If there is an infrastructure upgrade required, then unfortunately, I don't think this will reach larger (geographically speaking) countries for a while.
  
  Bring on the futire world where these speeds can be reached wirelessly, where the infrastructure needed is just a few towers plonked down every so many miles!

  3.2.2012 10:07 #6

• MrZoolook

  I wouldn't worry. Give it a few years and they will have been nuked and have to start again... isn't that the US way nowadays when an upstart nation attempts to do things better?

  3.2.2012 17:39 #7

• phobet

  Originally posted by deak91: TAKE NOTICE INTERNET COMPANIES IN THE U S one more thing we are falling behind in all because every step of the way your looking to gouge our wallet to death Unfortunately, US companies do not have a "social contract" with their customers, but with their share holders. Their priority is to create profit, so they can pay their share holders. That is why Internet access is so expensive. It's one of the few things they can heavily monetize.
  

  9.3.2012 10:01 #8