The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) of the Republic of South Korea has today announced the deployment of a nation-wide IPv6-based "broadband convergence network", providing 50 to 100 Mbit/s access speeds at the end-user level.

The plan entails an investment by the South Korean State of €1.45 billion, and seeks to induce more than €48 billion of investment by the industry from 2004 to 2010.

At the time of posting this news item, the MIC website does not yet announce the news (an official presentation is scheduled for 18 Nov 2003) but the Korean government's official homepage www.korea.net carries the following item:

Internet to be 50 times faster by 2010

November 17, 2003 15:2:35

The telecommunications network in South Korea will increase to 50 times its current speed and will cover the entire nation by 2010, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said on Monday (Nov. 17).

According to a BcN (Broadband convergence Network) infrastructure plan announced by the MIC, the government will invest 2 billion won and induce another 67 billion won from the private sector to provide a high-quality broadband multimedia service covering the whole country.

BcN, TV broadcasts, telecommunications and the Internet will be converged into one single network with transmission speeds of 50~100 Mbps, which is about 50 times faster than the current VDSL line used in many households. Ubiquitous networking will also be available through BcN, whereby any electronic device, such as refrigerators or digital televisions, will be able to perform as a network console enabling customers to use Internet anytime and anywhere.

The report also said that for BcN to be successful it must provide a high quality of service, security, and sufficient IP addresses using IPv6. IPv6 is an enhanced address system, which provides almost limitless IP addresses while the current IPv4 system only has about 4.3 billion addresses and is expected to be full by 2006.

The report estimates BcN to contribute 95 trillion won to the economy as well as 370,000 jobs by 2010. The export of BcN-related products will also increase from the current $2.7 billion to $13.5 billion in 2010. The report was compiled by a special research team, consisting of 178 experts from various research labs and companies including ETRI, KSDNI, KT, SK Telecom, and LG Telecom, for the MIC. The research team, which has been working on the project since May, will present seminars to the public and finalize details before the finished report is published in December.

The first seminar on BcN technology and strategy will be held on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Seoul Hilton.