By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
In an effort to prevent a standards conflict between Korea’s wireless broadband Internet standard WiBro and the emerging international standard WiMax, KT and Intel are scheduled to announce Thursday an agreement to “harmonize” the two wireless standards, according to Wednesday’s Korea Herald.
KT Corp., Korea’s largest high-speed Internet operator, said yesterday that it plans to align with U.S. tech giant Intel Corp. to develop technologies for wireless broadband, or WiBro, Through the partnership, KT will atempt to harmonize the Korean WiBro standard with more conventional portable Internet technologies used abroad, which could create new opportunities for exporting equipment and solutions in the future.
[...]
The partnership will join to join Wibro with Wimax, a technology that promises to deliver wireless broadband access up to 30 kilometers.
30 Comments
That makes sense. I know Seoul’s boundaries have expanded considerably over the years.
I have experience with technology issues.
I worked for two years as the technology manager of the Virginia Press Association.
So ” technology and Korea” is just the type of “value added” topic I feel comfortable providing The Marmot’s Hole.
Please — please — explain to me how I’m horribly misguided in this belief.
I’m waiting with my popcorn and gummy worms to learn why I can’t focus on Korean technology trends, if nothing else.
wink
Looks good to me. Very sober and serious, too.
And technology in Korea would be an excellent “niche” angle for you to fill here.
I notice you’ve modified your byline!
Anyhow, hopefully your many curmudgeonly detractors can put away their torches and pitchforks now….
By some coincidence, KT was down for several hours yesterday. Well…I’m not that tech-savvy. More accurately, my connection was down for several hours yesterday; I don’t know if the problem was more widespread than my apartment (in Sokcho, if others respond to how widespread it was).
Wow, you even have broadband access out there in the far reaches of Yeongdong, a hundred and one hills and valleys away from the capital?
I have often wondered why Korea has not developed something like this. With its relatively small area and high computer savy population density, Korea is the perfect place for such a deployment, especially if they can make it work on places like the KTX and the subway. 150 minutes to Pusan is not enough to do much but it is long enough to get bored, it would be a nice value added service. Not only that but, I am sure we would see LG and Samsung offer more wireless products if this service is deployed large scale in Korea.
Two and a half hours is still a long time. Think of when it was over four hours, not so very long ago! James, you’re quite right: South Korea would be an excellent place to develop a national wireless broadband system. It’s a small, compact, densely populated country that already has a highly developed landline broadband system.
(Sorry if I’m not using the right technical terminology. I’m a computer scientist, but wireless networks are not my specialization.)
There are “hot spots” popping up all over the city, and they are ever-expanding, which I think I read was part of a plan to essentially have wireless service as accessible as cellular service.
I have Nespot, and there are lots of places already where I can use it. Still, not as many as I like.
People have to be convinced to pay for it, not just use it. I have to pay 10,000 won extra for it, and a lot of people aren’t yet ready to do it because of limited availability… not yet.
BTW, this may be a better niche for Shelton. A nice complement to established Marmot posting.
Kushibo, you’ve really become a “Seoul t’obagi”! You use “the city” to denote Seoul, I assume.
There are, of course, other cities in Korea, like Busan/Pusan, Daegu/Taegu, Incheon/Inch’n, Gwangju/Kwangju, Daejeon/Taejn, Ulsan, Suwon/Suwn, Chuncheon/Ch’unch’n, Cheongju/Ch’ngju, Jeonju/Chnju, Changwon/Ch’angwn, and Jeju/Cheju, to name a few.
…Not to mention P’yngyang, Kaesng, Namp’o, P’yngsng, Siniju, Kanggye, Hyesan, Wnsan, Hamhng, Ch’ngjin, and Nasn/Rasn….
It may be becoming clear why my gravatar of choice is Kim Chngho, the great 19th-century Korean geographer….
Oh, and I forgot Haeju and Sariwn. Mustn’t leave out Hwanghae-do, although there’s a roughly 0.0000001% chance anyone from that part of Korea is reading this….
My pedantic friend, I meant “the city” as in urban areas. I have used this service in Pusan and (if I recall correctly) Kwangju and Inch’??n.
But even if I had meant only one city, I have made it clear which city I live in, and if that city I live in were Kwangju, Pusan, Taegu, Ulsan, Wonju, Ch’??ngju, Ch??nju, Cheju, S??gwip’o, or any of a kajillion other shi, it would have been clear what I meant.
I myself cringe and grimace when I hear Korean-Koreans speak of Pusan or Taegu or Kwangju as “the countryside” or “small towns.” No Seoul snob am I.
But if I were to be a Seoul snob, my snobbery would not extend to all of Seoul, since I think only those ku that encompass the city core (Chung-gu, Chongno-gu, Tongdaemun-gu, Yongsan-gu, S??daemun-gu, and Map’o-gu), plus Kangnam and S??ch’o, are the real Seoul (about one-third of the actual territory of the city). There is a peson I meet with some regularity, who lives out in Tobong-gu, and I frequently tell her, “Let me know when you’re coming to Seoul, and we’ll have lunch or dinner.”
She laughs, because she knows she lives out in the middle of nowhere.
Yes, for me the “real” Seoul is the area within the former city wall, plus the ancient suburbs of Yongsan, Map’o, etc.
Even Kangnam, today such an integral part of the city, doesn’t go back very far historically. In the early 70s, it was still largely farmers’ fields, except for the narrow strip along the railway/road between Noryangjin and Kuro.
That strip (Noryangjin to Kuro) was part of the ancient hamlet of Y??ngd?ngp’o.
Really? I know there’s Yngdp’o-gu in that area (and Y??ngd?ngp?€™o station), but I didn’t know it’s the historic “heart” of that area.
Back when there were still streetcars in Seoul (up until 1969), there was one line that ran from downtown all the way out to Y??ngd?ngp?€™o Station, along the main road.
And of course, trains have been running along the Kyngbu mainline through there since the turn of the century.
…The turn of the 20th century, that is!
During the Korean War, I think, Y??ngd?ngp’o was a separate city, outside Seoul city limits, but was absorbed later. It’s the forerunner of that metropolitan prefecture trend I was referring to earlier.
Old Korean War veterans I know talked about how it took a long time to get out to places like Y??ngd?ngp’o or Kimpo, all of which was outside Seoul, I believe.
In I.F. Stone’s “Hidden History of the Korean War” (an interesting read despite Bruce the-Russians-are-Cumings’s opening), it talks about Y??ngd?ngp’o as a separate town, outside of Seoul.
I think that given the length of time that mobile phone coverage of Korea has been a reality, people are not going to be willing to consider paying extra for this type of wireless access unless their current lifestyle keeps them consistantly near the existing hot spots. Nationwide coverage is what most subscribers require before they will be willing to pay extra for the service. Would you use a mobile carrier that doesn’t have very good coverage? Not in Korea I think.
I have a question for you gents: do you think that the annexing of Y??ngd?ngp?€™o into Seoul had anything to do with a desire of the people of that area to have their city be a part of Seoul rather than be from outside the city. I know in the mid 1990?€™s Iri changed its name (back) to Iksan based on the fact that there used to be both an Iri and Iksan and Iksan eventually grew into one city annexing Iri but the Iri name was kept and the Iksan name was discarded. I suspect there are probably parts of Pusan that also used to be their own cities. Certainly the Songj??ngni area of Kwangju fits into this category. Actually, I am not sure if it is officially part of the city or not but I am fairly sure it was not originally. To what extent do you think the desire of the local population to be associated with a certain area influences this type of annexations and accompanying address changes compared to the reality that urban sprawl has in fact swallowed what used to be a separate city?
A fascinating question that I am utterly unqualified to answer.
But yes, all the “metropolitan cities” (a term Kushibo doesn’t like, but screw it), have grown in size over the years, much as Seoul has done.
intel is on a partnership binge these days. i love it!!! now they’ll run the networks and the macs. buh-bye MS…
Anybody want to tell a layman what the Intel-Apple partnership will mean for me as a Mac user?
shelton, please focus on the tech issues in korea if you feel confident in that field. i just found out i will be involved in the future of entertainment conference in asia next year and am very interested in northeast asian tech issues for obvious reasons. still, as my existential phenomenology prof used to say, “just the facts ma’am.” in other words, if you’re interested in keeping up on the tech issues in korea i think that could be a great addition to the politics and sex if you can drill down in the specific areas. did i say sex? what’s up with the lack of that these days, marmot?
Wish I could be guest poster omn Marmot’s blog.
on Marmot’s blog.
Tiny!
for those interested in global economics a long, sobering read by Henry C K Liu . http://www.atimes.com/atimes/G.....6Dj01.html
You’d always be welcome, Tiny. Shame you aren’t running your own anymore.
The Apple-Intel partnership should mean really nothing for you. Apple and Intel are claiming that this partnership will bring better CPUs to already great Apple products. I am sure you have read about it but the press is anxious to point out that while there may be some technical bugs to work out with the Mac OS and the Intel CPUs, for the most part Apple has shown that it is already of mastering these issues and rolling out new products in a seamlessly smooth fashion. What it boils down to for everyone is that for the first time, everyone will be able to compare the Mac and Windows and Linux together with no excuses because they will be running on the same CPUs. The claim is that the old Apple CPUs were a little slower. I think it is potentially a smart move on the part of Apple because they now get the Intel inside brand recognition that will hopefully help attract new customers that used to think of Apple as an oddity with nothing the same or compatible. Now, they are able to take the Intel brand name and show themselves off to be a competitor of Microsoft not unlike Linux in that it is a reliable non-windows operating system. It could backfire if the setup proves to be slower than a normal Windows run system but I doubt that will be the case, that would have been looked into first before any sort of announcement was made. I would expect no detrimental impact on what a Mac is. If anything, it just got better. All the same programs will still run like they used to.
Well, when they switched from 680X0 architecture (look at me, sounding like a nerd) to PowerPC chips, there was an issue of some new software not running on the old machines.
When they switched from OS9 to OSX, there was (is!) an issue of having to run Classic for certain programs, so that you essentially have an emulator for older programs.The claim is that the old Apple CPUs were a little slower.I know that Intel would bring out “fast” chips and everything, but I read frequently that Apples still processed things faster… not what you have but what you do with it.I think it is potentially a smart move on the part of Apple because they now get the Intel inside brand recognitionThere used to be a joke about that among Mac users:
Q: What do you call the “Intel Inside” sticker?
A: A warning label.