Hardcore gaming

According to Marketing Insight, 40% of Korean mobile users are also m-gamers - over 6% for hardcore mobile gamers (daily use). If you want to know what a Korean hardcore gamer is, ask Mr Lee : the 28 year old collapsed after playing 49 hour non stop in a PC Bang. Mr Lee would often stay there 3 days in a row but this time he died. No wonder : I tried the same game ("World of Warcraft") in a PC Bang and had to leave after one hour, my heartbeat pulsing a steady 359. Around me, people wouldn't leave the screen one second, even while ordering ramions or pizzas with their mobile phones. I also left because I had been methodically buldozed, nuked and vaporized by a giant bug army (who happened to be controled by a 12 year old), but luckily enough, I survived in real life.
Now you can turn your own home into a PC Bang : in http://ftth Korea (Fiber To The Home), 100 Mbps rates are getting common and BcN (Broadband Convergence Network) first pilots are starting in Seoul thanks to DaCom* (a broadband-VoIP-broadcasting triple play for the 350 first customers). The Government wants every Korean to have at least a 1 Mbps connection by 2010 and the country proved it could deliver.
I wonder how life in appateu will look like when everybody's playing with 3D goggles on an ultimate shoot'em all...

* Among the other 3 BcN consortia, those led by KTF and SKT are focusing on wireless first (unlike DaCom, their core business) : real convergence in BcN may take 2 more years and both players already enjoy key entry points in the country's households. Note that KTF launched their mobile music portal half a year after SKT : dosirak started last may (download & streaming services - 192 Kbps for streaming, interesting coupon packages) and should get 300,000 customers by year end (MelOn targets 800,000 paying subs at that time out of 3M total subscribers - they hit the 2M mark after 7 month).

WiBroken hearts

How could WiBro possibly make it ? KT seems to maintain their 2006 TTM but earlier this week Hanaro decided to drop a techno their partner SKT was already feeling so-so about (focusing on HSDPA, the next "universal" mobile techno...). The MIC may be looking for new WiBro license holders, who can sign a check for it and for the roll out ? That would be a little bit less than a billion bucks for an ailing project even the nation's #2 broadband powerhouse can't afford. Hanaro still needs to recover from the purchase of Thrunet and must face fierce competition : Dacom's Powercomm is coming, and the leader KT keeps pushing harder on convergence (ie their last phone service KT Ann extends the home sphere with sms and more innovative gimmicks such as ringo). Even in Korea, being a leading broadband ISP is not enough anymore.