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With broadband connections in 70% of its households (that's approximately 11 million homes), the winner by a landslide is South Korea. Why? Because broadband is everywhere, it's fast, and it's cheap. WIRED Magazine describes young Koreans' passion for the Internet lifestyle. The country boasts over 26,000 "PC baangs" or cybercafes where young adults gather to play games, video-chat, and essentially hook up. The cafes are the singles-bar alternative for this tech-savvy set. Beyond swinging singles, South Korea has the highest per capita broadband penetration in the world. About 70% of its citizens live in the seven largest cities, and Seoul comprises a quarter of the nation's population. Even more astounding
is the country's communications system is a huge optical network -- so that makes urban life ripe for Net usage. As for mobile phones, nearly two-thirds of Koreans have spiffy handsets that are 10 times faster than those used here in the U.S. In fact, their last presidential election saw young mobile phone users change the voting tide by hitting up chat rooms to support a particular candidate. Within minutes, more than 800,000 emails were sent to mobile phones urging people to vote for the trailing candidate. The technologically bolstered candidate won. With all its advantages, the downside to South Korea's hyper-connectivity is susceptibility to hacking and viruses. Earlier this year, the
Seoul market felt the bite of a worm attack.
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