Korea — famed as a kind of net.paradise where the DSL runs to 100 megabits and penetrates every home — has pioneered a darker Internet phenomenon: a wholesale breach of net neutrality by a cablemodem company owned by LG.
The ISP in question runs a broadband video service that is being creamed by a competing Internet service. In order to "compete" better with the winning player, they simply cut off access to it for their customers, saying "IPTV is a broadcasting, not a telecommunications service."
Two million cable modem subscribers and one million LG Powercomm broadband customers are being blocked from watching video from video on demand service HanaTV, Korea Times reports. Korea's innovative Hanaro, #2 to Korea Telecom in broadband, has signed up 60,000 customers for video on demand in the first three months. KT Vice President Shim Ju-kyo tells Korea Times "We are 100 percent ready to introduce Internet TV services and we will do so next year as soon as the legal framework is set up,'' LG's sister company, Dacom, has an IPTV offering of their own in the works. Hanaro is controlled by U.S. investors AIG and Newbridge, while Goldman Sachs and Bill Kennard's Carlyle Group have been investing in Korean cable companies.
The Korea Cable TV Association is maintaining "IPTV is a broadcasting, not a telecommunications service" and boycotting the Hanaro offering. Cable networks have been fighting a regulatory battle to keep telcos out of the TV business.
(via Isen)
