Huge tides of daily internet use wash over South Korea

By SIMON COLLINS

When millions of South Koreans took to the streets in red T-shirts and headbands during this year's World Cup, they used the internet to find where to go.

In September, when a Korea Development Bank official suspected a loan to a Hyundai company might have been used to make a secret $800 million payment to North Korea, word leaked out on a website.

And, when Seoul business strategist Joyce Lee planned a holiday in Germany, she entered one of one million "online communities" run by Korea's top internet portal, Daum Communications.

Using the Daum Cafe travel community, she got accommodation and rail service information from Koreans who had visited Germany.

Daum marketer Robin Kim and his wife used another online community when considering English language tuition for their son.

"I put 'educating children' on the keyboard and can find a lot of online communities about that. We can meet some teachers and parents in that community, so we exchange information," Kim says.

"A lot of people give the response that this is an appropriate time for a 7-year-old to learn English, so I am quite positive to enter the English class for my son."

In South Korea, probably more than anywhere, the internet is incorporated in people's daily lives.

Since 70 per cent of its homes use high-speed broadband internet, South Korea is charting a whole new world. In other countries, fewer than 10 per cent of people have broadband; in New Zealand only 4 per cent.

Korea's huge lead is no accident. Dr Suh Sam Young, president of its National Computerisation Agency, says: "From the mid-1980s there was consensus among Korea's leading groups that, even though we are behind in industrialisation, we have to be first in the information society."

In 1995, the Government contracted with KT (Korea Telecom) and Dacom to provide a nationwide broadband "backbone" including services to all schools, research institutes and public agencies.

Schools contractor KT agreed to supply 256-kilobytes-a-second broadband to schools free for five years.

In return, the Government put up 5 per cent of the network's $22 billion capital cost. Schools agreed to make KT their home page, to use multimedia for 10 per cent of the time in all classes and to assign homework requiring student use of the internet.

Suh says the telecom companies wanted a service charge of more than US$100 ($206) a month.

"We decided individual households have to use this, so the price has to be less than US$40 ($83) a month," Suh says.

When KT stalled in protest, two companies, Thrunet and Hanaro Telecom, quickly signed up thousands of customers in 1998-99. KT joined the race in December 1999.

"There has to be competition," says Suh.

Despite KT's doubts, Koreans proved willing to pay fees which now average about US$25 ($51) a month for education, for games - and for scandal.

Suh says when South Korean actors and actresses put one of their scandals on the internet, everyone wanted to see it. "That was what spread the demand for high-speed networks."

The Government provides free or discounted internet training for 10 million, including housewives, prisoners, the elderly, the disabled.

After the Asian crisis in 97-98, it hired unemployed people to put a huge amount of historical and official data on the internet. It pays educators to produce Korean-language educational material.

It provides free broadband access in 9000-plus public libraries, 2000 post offices and 3500 other public offices. School networks are open to the public after hours.

In addition, in 22,500 privately owned "PC rooms" (internet cafes) around the country, youths pay 1000 won ($1.70) an hour - mainly to play games.

In effect, the PC rooms created a market for broadband, which made people willing to pay for it at home. Now, says Suh, 96 per cent of households with school-aged children have high-speed internet.

A recent survey shows 49 per cent of internet use is to search for information, 26 per cent for games, 14 per cent for email, 3 per cent for education, 2 per cent each for chatting and shopping and 1 per cent for banking.

Seoul storekeeper Jang Myong Ja, 62, and her husband Lim Young Jai, 66, got free training with Silvernet, the Korean equivalent of New Zealand's Senior Net. Jang has written an article for the Silvernet website about a counselling centre for Alzheimer's Disease, and has a family homepage with a gallery of photos.

Her daughter-in-law, Paik Soo Yeon, uses the internet every day to read the newspaper, do shopping and get community news.

A Government pamphlet says many apartment blocks are wired up to local networks and the cost included in their monthly maintenance fees.

Their network bulletin board messages range from "What can I do for my baby who has a sudden fever?" to "I want to give away things that I don't use to someone who needs them".

"In the past people usually gathered at sarangbang [community rooms] to share their kindness and friendship among neighbours, but in our modern society the internet is filling that role," a brochure gushes.

Almost 9 per cent of all Korean transactions last year were done by e-commerce.

"Korean people don't have much time to do the supermarket, so use the internet market," says Harry Song, of Hyundai's online shopping network.

Books are the most popular internet buy (19 per cent), followed by computer hardware (11 per cent), houses (10 per cent), cosmetics (9 per cent) and leisure and hobby goods (8 per cent).

Daum and other agencies operate job-finding services. The Ministry of Labour also runs an employment database to help people find jobs.

An MP, Dr Huh Unna, sees high-speed internet as a tool for democracy. She is excited about a system that will let voters trace how taxes are spent in "real time", and records her views and diary on her home page so voters can respond.

The next stage in the Korean plan is internet access through mobile phones. Once again Korea leads the world: 64 per cent of the population has a cellphone and 83 per cent of cellphones are internet-capable.

Uses include a global positioning system to give you a map when you're lost, a used-car trading service to check car registration and settle payments, mobile banking and stock trading. Every Korean cellphone seems to have a fold-up screen over a keypad which is almost as small and thin as a calculator.

However, the Korean experience raises concerns, particularly about internet addiction. Last month, a 24-year-old man died in a PC room after playing computer games non-stop for 86 hours.

A recent Daum survey shows 15 per cent of Koreans are "internet-dependent", using the internet at least 40 hours a week, mainly to play games.

Just over half of Korean women use chat services, some until 5am or 6am, and then fall asleep in class or at work. The Information Culture Centre for Korea knows of 200 divorces caused by "a wife's online chat addiction".

Among lonely adults and teenagers, internet chatting replaces real relationships.

For New Zealand, Korea's online culture offers opportunities and lessons.

A lesson for traders is that selling in South Korea requires an internet presence. Tourism NZ is launching a Korean-language section of its website this month.

Politically, the Korean experience suggests that high-speed internet will not reach most people quickly without Government subsidy and commercial competition. In a globalised world, that access is likely to be increasingly important.

But New Zealand's small-scale society offers an opportunity to do better than Korea in using the internet as a tool to complement real, face-to-face activities and relationships - not replace them.

* Simon Collins visited South Korea with support from Asia 2000.