Lots Of WiFi In South Korea
Korea Telecom is pushing forward with plans to rollout a massive number of WiFi hotspots all around Korea. They claim that it will be the world’s largest WiFi network (which is something of a silly and pointless claim). Either way, they expect 23,000 access points up and running by the end of the year (there are already around 12,000). South Korea’s adoption of broadband technologies is well documented, and KT claims that they’re doing well selling a “bundled” package that offers broadband at home and the ability to connect to their hotspots. With such widespread coverage, and reasonable prices, it probably makes sense for a lot of users – to be fairly confident that they can get broadband access wherever they go. Also interesting is that they’re not thrilled about the idea of WiMax, saying the technology may be fine, but they just don’t see the need. So much of populated Korea already has wired broadband, and it’s so easy to toss on a WiFi access point, that they see little additional benefit to WiMax.
