When I checked into my hotel in Seoul, this is what I found on the desk beside the widescreen plasma TV: a laptop computer and a mobile phone in a cradle.
Is there any other country in the world where hotels offer laptops and mobile phones?
South Korea isn’t known for nothing as the most wired nation in the world.
Just stroll through the subway system. It seems like a third of the passengers are staring into their mobile phones, wearing earplugs to catch the audio. They are actually watching television. According to The Economist earlier this month, some 7.5 million South Koreans enjoy mobile television services.
Japan also has this service, but South Korea got an earlier start. Cell phone manufacturers like Samsung and LG have done well selling new mobiles with larger, crystal clear screens to users.
The mobile television market is about to boom: This report says by 2010, the market of mobile TV handsets is expected to reach 70-80 million according to a low estimate and up to 160 million units on the high end.
Like in Japan, the South Korean service providers haven’t yet figured out how to make money off the mobile television services. After all, they are free to consumers. And advertisers haven’t yet decided to pony up the big bucks. Maybe mobile programming has to be customized to a greater extent.
On my last day over the weekend, I checked out of the hotel and expected a lengthy delay while someone physically registered the calls I had made on the mobile. Nope. All automated. Check out was a breeze. All my calls were monitored and automatically billed.
There are certain drawbacks to being so wired.
There is a contraversial but popular service offered by the telecom companies in S.Korea that let couples check where each other are by phone. As in you can locate your partner through GPS on their cellphone using the web or on your own phone. Sounds like having a relationship with your parole officer?
You would think ppl can just leave their phones at home then, but living in such a wired society, ppl would rather go out without their underwear than without their phone - at least you can purchase new underwear at the supermarket with your phone.
Posted by: rio | September 17, 2007 at 07:44 AM
I live in South Korea and was quite impressed to find a computer in my room the last time I stayed at a budget hotel.
Posted by: The Western Confucian | September 17, 2007 at 08:38 AM
There is a great market for a device that spoofs the location and allows people to think they are at one place while they are at another.
A relay box!
Posted by: Pundit | September 17, 2007 at 09:35 AM