Koreans have very high expectations on the quality and the speed of
telecommunication systems, whether they are mobile phones or broadband
Internet lines or a mobile TV. And that standard is being raised even
higher this year with the introduction of Mobile WiMax (WiBro) network
in major cities this year.
Between Jan. 15 and Feb. 4, The Korea Times conducted field tests of KT's WiMax service around Seoul. Testers used a Lenovo laptop PC and a finger-sized modem that comes with the WiMax subscription for free.
The WiMax modem was plugged into a USB port of the
laptop, and the green light started to blink in about 10 seconds to
indicate it went online. The test vehicle hit the Seoul-Busan
expressway, the main artery of South Korea, from its starting point
near Hannam Bridge to Pangyo exit near Bundang, about 30 kilometers
south of Seoul. To see whether the network works constantly, testers
launched a real-time Web broadcasting channel of MBC TV, which requires
a high-speed Internet connection for viewing.
The result was almost flawless. During the 20-minute journey, the TV
streaming had only two brief interruptions, each of them lasting less
than one second. It actually seemed like a problem of the broadcasters'
network, not WiMax's, because the Internet connection of the laptop
remained online.
