05-28-2005, 02:12 PM
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Confirmed User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,648
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by MrC
please tell us why wise one.
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Google is your friend:
http://news.com.com/South+Korea+lead...3-5261393.html
One obstacle to reproducing South Korea's broadband explosion in the United States is purely physical.
The city of Seoul is home to 10 million people--almost one quarter of the country's entire population. Many urban Koreans live in high-rise apartment blocks, unlike city-dwelling Americans, who often occupy smaller buildings and houses.
"It is pretty different in a lot of ways," said David Young, director of technology policy at Verizon Communications. "Their demographics and housing density certainly made it easier to achieve the rapid penetration and high speeds that are available there. That cannot be easily emulated."
In Korea, large apartment buildings make it relatively simple for a telecommunications company to draw a fiber line to the basement and then provide VDSL (very high speed digital subscriber line). VDSL can offer as much as 50 to 100 megabits of service over short copper lines, so it is well-suited to these buildings.
But the technology doesn't work so well in the United States, where the distance between homes and the telephone company's central offices are often large. As a result, the big phone companies say they are avoiding VDSL for the most part and looking instead to install fiber optics as a next-generation technology.
"We've continued to work with the standards organizations," SBC Labs Executive Director Eugene Edmon said. "But we've got a good focus on the fiber. That helps us expand and helps keep the vendor community-focused." |
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