jungwhan cho

south korea

software engineer

There is no escape from the dark side even in the Far East.
South Korea as you eagerly praise, does enjoy from high speed internet access and much larger population using high-tech net and mobile services. However there is no surprise here, the fat cat telcos in Korea are no different from the ones you will find in the rest of the world; they see open net in their mobile domain as a threat, not an opportunity. Understandably, they see their proprietary mobile contents and services as a large slice of their source of income, for both present and the future; the text book of being an operator in this era, reducing churn, increasing brand value, blah blah blah..

And to back up my argument, news of a student committing suicide for the monthly bill exceeding the amount that will allow surfing the net with all its wonderful stuff for a couple of years, and of a guy who had to pay just as much because he dozed off for a couple of hours with his mobile TV services on(or something similar).

You will soon (or at some point in future) find out that the successes that we have seen in the region is more due to the government control, marketing, and simply larger number of consumers enjoying high-tech stuff.. not the technology driven realization of companies' money making schemes.

And who can we blame for this short sightedness that will eventually be brought down by the good force in the later episodes of the mobile saga?
Simple answer; short sighted executives who only care for annual results.