In an attempt to take a bigger share of the broadband internet market, providers are speeding up network upgrades in the world`s most wired nation, as demand for faster internet service is on the rise.

Beefing up infrastructure to enhance the speed of the internet, rather than focusing on marketing, is the current strategy of internet service operators.

KT, Korea`s largest internet service provider which has a market share of 45.2 percent, said it will invest more than 1 trillion won ($1.06 billion) in connecting optical cables to every home by 2010.

"ADSL service will no longer be able to fit the heavy traffic of enormous content of the internet, especially when IPTV service is expected to be introduced this year," said Koo Ja-ho, an official at public relations office in KT.

Market experts say demand for higher-speed internet will rise in line with the development of Internet Protocol TV, or IPTV, which requires real-time interactive communication between consumers and content providers, both sending and receiving a high amount of information.

Hanarotelecom Inc, the second-largest internet provider, is also boosting investment on improving networks to provide quicker internet service.

Hararotelecom is to spend 120 billion won this year alone to upgrade the broadband networks to offer 100 Mbps speed service, which will enable smooth convergence of the internet and broadcasting, the company said.

"By utilizing the existing HFC networks, Hanarotelecom will upgrade the speed to 100 Mbps. Within this month, we will run a trial service for 8,000 subscribers living in detached houses (not in apartments)," said Shin Yoon-hye, an official at Hanarotelecom.

LG Powercomm, which initiated the optical LAN service in Korea in 2005, has recently strengthened its premium-speed internet service brand XPEED through a comic TV commercial, which gives an audience the message of importance of speed.

LG Powercomm said it aims to secure 2 million XPEED customers this year and hopes to earn 500 billion won in optical LAN sales.

According to recent data collected by the Ministry of Information and Communication, an increasing number of Korean internet users are shifting their internet access subscription from ADSL-based services to much faster ones based on optical LAN, Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC) and Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks.

The difference between the former group of relatively-slower internet ADSL or VDSL and the latter group of faster optical LAN, HFC and FTTH is remarkable when downloading a video file, for example.

While the former group offers internet speed of 10 to 50 Mbps, which takes 30 minutes to download a movie file, the latter offers up to 100 Mbps, which reduce the downloading time to less than 5 minutes.

According to the MIC`s data on the number of broadband subscribers, the number of ADSL and VDSL subscribers shrank to 5.4 million in December from 6.5 million in January last year, but optical LAN subscribers almost doubled to 3.3 million in December from 1.7 million in January. The HFC service users increased 1 million last year.

"We can see clearly that Korean users want speedier internet when we see many broadband subscribers shifting to faster services such as optical LAN and HFC," said Chu Sun-yeong, an official at the MIC`s communications competition policy team.

(yoonmi@heraldm.com)



By Kim Yoon-mi