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Thursday 02 September 2010
ARIRANG NEWS 22:00
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| Updated : August 29, 2008 |
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| Korea Rises to Internet Powerhouse After 60 years as a Democratic Country |
Koreans live in a high-tech age reaping the benefits of state of the art gadgets for communication.
But it wasn't always like this.
More than six decades ago most Koreans struggled to pick through the devastation after the country's liberation from Japanese rule.
A simple telephone was considered an alien tool with only 50-thousand available in the whole country.
Average people relied on mail to communicate with loved ones a telephone was for the rich and privileged.
After 1960 the government implemented a five-year plan to improve the nation's communication methods.
By 1975 there were more than a million phones available a drastic increase from the past but still ten times short of meeting the demand.
Back then there were two types of phones a blue government-owned phone not available to the public and a white phone that was for the masses.
Experts recall that available white phones and numbers were so scarce that people were willing to pay as much as a house for them.
The real breakthrough came in 1986 when home-grown technology got rid of telephone operators and increased the number of phone lines to 10 million.
The first cell phone appeared in 1988 but to own it you had to pay more than three thousand US dollars.
Then came the awkward stage when Koreans stood in long lines in front of public phones calling the people who'd sent messages to their beepers.
In 1996 the digital era ushered in the creation of digital cell phones and Korea took the lead in commercializing the techonology becoming the largest exporter of the phones.
Things kept getting better with the adoption of the modem and ADSL or optic lines which helped the nation become an Internet powerhouse.
But there is a dark side to all this technological advancement.
Experts warn that it's time to fight against a growing number of cyber-crimes such as hacking and the stealing of personal information.
Shin Haejoo, Arirang News.
AUG 29, 2008
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in National News |
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Friday, SEP 03, 2010, (KST) 
