TelecomTV TelecomTV
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Events
  • Directory
  • Smart Studio
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • DSP Leaders
  • Great Telco Debate
    • |
    • Follow
    • |
    • Subscribe
  • |
  • More
  • Webcasts
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • Great Telco Debate
  • |
  • Follow TelecomTV
  • |
    • Subscribe
    • |
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Follow TelecomTV
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Sign In Register Subscribe
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In
    • Register
  • Search

News

News

South Korea adopts sharing approach to public WiFi

Jul 15, 2013

According to South Korea's JoongAng Daily, the country's Ministry of Science, IT and Future Planning (and with a name like that, why wouldn't it?) is going to extend its already free public WiFi service nationwide. It currently has a substantial 2000 free public access points, mostly in the cities, and it's planning to add 10,000 more locations to start to bring the rest of the county up to par. So far, so so-so, you might think. And so what?

The interest here is that South Korea has hit on an effective funding approach. The ministry appears to have hammered out a sharing deal with the country's three network operators. By throwing open the entire WiFi network to anyone, the government is essentially providing free offload to the country's mobile carriers (which is one way of looking at it). So in return, the 4000 operator-run hotspot location will also join the free scheme.

In the meantime the ministry will get busy building WiFi at 6000 public sites like health centres, community centres and so on, further increasing WiFi access volume and reducing strain on the operator networks. The expansion cost will also be shared by the operators.

The scheme essentially horizontalises the public WiFi market in South Korea. The government says it was interested in regional equity more than anything else: as things stood WiFi use was growing fast in South Korea and was saving citizens substantial sums in mobile broadband charges. The problem was that over half the WiFi hotspots were in the capital and largest city, Seoul. The government wanted to take action to reduce the 'information gap' nationally and the huge nationwide WiFi network is the result.

The ministry's goal is to establish 12,000 free Internet access spots by 2017.

Related Topics
  • Analysis & Opinion,
  • News

More Like This

Access Evolution

What’s up with… Broadband cord cutting, HPE, Deutsche Telekom

Mar 3, 2021

Digital Platforms & Services

Whatever Tecnotree’s doing, it’s working…

Mar 3, 2021

5G

With just two telco contenders with cash to splash, India’s spectrum auction lacked lustre

Mar 3, 2021

5G

What’s up with… Chris Rice, STL, NetNumber, spectrum in India

Mar 2, 2021

Digital Platforms & Services

Meet the telecom procurement influencers…

Mar 2, 2021

Email Newsletters

Stay up to date with the latest industry developments: sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox – including our daily news briefing and weekly wrap.

Subscribe

Top Picks

Highlights of our content from across TelecomTV today

18:24

How Zoom evolved in the pandemic era

26:24

Red Hat and HPE discuss how to support open multi-vendor 5G network slices

14:28

How RADCOM is helping Rakuten Mobile run its innovative 5G network

8:33

Monetizing innovative telco edge services

  • TelecomTV
  • Decisive Media

TelecomTV is produced by the team at Decisive Media

Menu
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Directory
  • Smart Studio
 
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • Events
  • About Us
Our Brands
  • TelecomTV Tracker
  • TelecomTV Perspectives
  • DSP Leaders
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • The Great Telco Debate
Get In Touch
[email protected]
+44 (0) 207 448 1070

Request a Media Pack

Follow
  • © Decisive Media Limited 2021. All rights reserved. All brands and products are the trademarks of their respective holder(s).
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Legal Notices