1Gbps home internet access for US$215
Yat Siu at the lesblogs conference in Paris compared the prices of broadband Internet between asia and the rest of the world, as a few people including David were surprised by these numbers, Yat just gave me a link with detailed pricing:
-1Gbps for US$215 per month
-100Mbps for US$34 per month
-10Mbps for US$16 per month
This was pricing in Honk Kong. In China according to this article (in Chinese), "100Mbps service is approx. 26.5 euros and 1 Gigabit service is approx. 166.36 euros the 1 G service has an installation fee" says Yat.
I want the same in Paris, now !
update: Yat adds info about Korea and more:
"On 100 Mbps in Korea there is an article in Korean that discusses this:
http://zdnet.co.kr/news/network/0,39024416,39135927,00.htm
The government has been pushing to spread nationwide increase of infrastructure speeds to 50Mbps already in 2003 in Korea with the construction of the BcN following the goal to have 100Mbps by 2010. This is not a secret that the Korean Government has had super internet speeds as part of their National Agenda (ever since the Asian Economic Crisis for that matter) however ever since then the plans have been pushed forward significantly as Korea has been ever keen to maintain its top dog status as the leader in Broadband everything.
A little digging on an english article is here: http://www.chiefexecutive.net/depts/technology/197a.htm which has this particular quote on an Article in April 2004:
"Last year, the Korean government forked out more than $2 billion of the $10 billion needed to build the world's fastest integrated network. This "broadband convergence network" (BcN) will provide connection speeds of between 50 to 100 megabits per second by the end of next year. The fastest connection speed in the U.S. is just 3 megabits right now. "BcN will be a core platform for the creation of an advanced communications market," says Minister Chin "
I know of quite a number of people who have 100Mbps service, whether they GET a full 100Mbps is a different question alltogether I suppose. Korean Broadband providers are not thinking they will compete on price and size alone so they are leading the charge in value added content services (like digital TV). Most don't compete like HKBN, they call it "Super High Speed Mega Ultra whatever" and place the xDSL or vDSL "speeds". In many cases the bandwidth increases are being treated almost as "unlimited" for the pro super speeds which are geared towards online gamers. Super high speed is also a requirement for the Cyber Cafe's which are the social center of many of these online communities. Fiber is also widely connected across Seoul and even "smaller" operators like Dreamline are claiming network capacity in the 800Gpbs service range with 1.6Tbps coming soon.
KT is of course the nr.1 in Korea, Dreamline is another top competitor, a specific reference can be found on their metro service http://www.dreamline.co.kr/service/metro.php which offers adjustable internet services upto 100Mbps and their Super High Speed Internet service offering "xDSL (VDSL)". Pricing from various service providers for this kind of DSL vary between 30-50,000+won (approx. 20-35 euros or so). These can be found on websites of Hanaro Telecom and KT of course too. They all offer VDSL as pretty much standard offering."
