South Korean ISP set to unveil 10Gbps fiber connection, 1GB download in less than a second

Shawn Knight

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One gigabit per second (1Gbps) fiber connections like those offered by Google Fiber is considered the Holy Grail of broadband in the US. The truth of the matter, however, is that Americans lag (no pun intended) far behind other countries in terms of Internet speeds.

Take South Korea, for example. The nation’s current average broadband speed is 100Mbps which enables users to download a 1GB file in around 80 seconds. That’s certainly nothing to scoff at although it pales in comparison to what’s just around the corner.

One of the nation’s largest broadband service providers, SK Broadband, will be introducing its new 10Gbps fiber service on October 20 at the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunications Union at the Busan convention center.

If you’re keeping up, that’s 100 times faster than the already fast 100Mbps average that South Koreans enjoy. With it, customers will be able to download the aforementioned 1GB file in just 0.8 seconds.

The latest advancements in broadband technology typically come out of countries like Japan and South Korea, a fact that citizens are very proud of.

Natsuki Kumagai told Stop the Cap that the world watched NASA send men to the moon in the 1960s and many grew up amazed at the constant advancements of the Americans. Now, however, the Americans are the ones doing the watching. Pyon Seo-Ju echoed those sentiments, highlighting how slow and expensive Internet access was during travels to the US.

How fast is your home Internet connection? Let us know in the comments section below!

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560kB/s DOWN
90kB/s UP
DSL

I would upgrade to 16mbps... but currently I'm just a few blocks from the boundary.
 
60 Mbps down
10 Mbps up

With a 320gb monthly cap.

Normal price is $70 but been paying $35 for it on a discount.
 
50mbps up/down, as my roommates didn't want to pay the extra for 500mbps. Although it isn't that much more expensive, €40 and €60 respectively.
 
6mb down 750kbps up
$60 a month centurylink and horrible reliability to boot
 
I pay for 50Mb/s up and down, although my download speeds are around 8MB/s, meaning I'm getting ~64Mb/s for download. Even still, American ISPs need to catch up; at this rate it won't be long before every first world country outside of the US/UK has better Internet speeds than us.
 
Home: 110/12Mbps (Comcast Blast! tier NH)

Boston University dorm: 150/120 - Varies widely, their residential Ethernet is limited to 10BASET=10Mbps so I use their 802.11n@5ghz wifi that can theoretically handle 300Mbps. At the Photonics building it can go up to 220/140 on wifi, I haven't seen or tested on a GigE line yet
 
I have Charter Internet at 100 Mbps download, 4Mbps upload. I'm ecstatic about my download speed. I think Charter is probably an above average ISP. Don't get me wrong though, above average for an ISP is still nowhere near what I consider a good ISP. 4Mbps upload is not acceptable.

I agree, here in the US, we will watch other nations make true strides in the development of technology. The US corporations are too concerned with releasing small innovations and conserving technology for small incremental advancements to ensure sustained profitability. Too many legal barriers have been strategically placed to prevent competition from forming and thus we have lost the greatest advantage that capitalism used to give us.
 
Take South Korea, for example

Is this a joke? South Korea has been the front runner of Internet speeds for a while, it is not an example, it is an exception!
 
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Americans lag (no pun intended) far behind other countries in terms of Internet speeds..

well... the US is 100 times bigger by square mileage than S. Korea and it will always be behind just about every other industrial country in the world in terms of internet speed. When we're behind another large country like China or Russia or India or Brazil, then we'll start feeling bad and maybe do something about it. Until then we'll just have to deal and wait an extra 1.4 seconds for our Netflix to load.
 
I don't get the need for 10gbps Internet connection for 2014/2015 for household yet. Assuming you have it, so the link to the Internet is 10gbps, what about the link between your router and your computer? Where on Earth are you supposed to get 10gbps LAN speed unless you're an Enterprise now? 1gbps is still plenty for years to come until 10gbps LAN become mainstream first.
 
18mbps down and 2mbps up with AT&T uverse. It stinks that there is no fiber in my neighborhood. The only fiber near me is in a business area where two major highways intersect.
 
You think your speeds are bad? Try living in Aus.

@Nima304 I'm fairly sure almost every first world country currently already has faster broadband than AU, so we're losing that battle before it starts. Ours will always lag behind, I think.
 
3 mbps @ 50 US dollars here in the Philippines
the majority of people here are masochistic for tolerating such punishment

everybody's speed is better then us
 
1GB in one second .... assuming you're the only person using the fiber cable. And that the server is not busy and can in fact pump out 10Gb/s out of its ethernet port. And that its disks are fast enough to get the data to the port, and yours are fast enough to write it. In fact, what will happen is this: there will be dozens, probably hundreds of people sharing the fiber. This will feed into a router somewhere which is going flat out, which will funnel the request to a server somewhere which is on a different network, possibly overseas, and is servicing 500 people, and allocates you 23kb/sec out of its available bandwidth. Your car may be able to do 280km/h in theory, but may in fact be no faster than a car able to do 120km/h tops at the time and where you want to drive it.
 
Philippines, globe telecom wimax original plan 768Kbps (free upgrade to 1Mbps, 'on certain hours of the day' boost up to 1.5Mbps or up to ~192KBps actual download speed),

for the past four years or so, globe telecom and its rival: pldt-smart telecom have laid underground cables along the national highway in my province. no word though if they are offering fiber internet in our very small town. fiber internet is already available at certain affluent residential neighborhoods in selected metropolitan areas.
 
Here @GDL, Mexico: 75 Mbps down/2 Mbps up, no cap. $50 USD a month (optic fiber WAN, TVs, phone) until december because of a promo, ~$82 USD after that.
 
That moment when your computer takes longer to append all the downloaded parts than downloading the file/s. (n)
 
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