Ministry of Science and ICT: "Korea's Ultra-High-Speed Internet Speed Ranked 34th Is Unreliable"…Refutes US Company Survey

-US Company Ookla "South Korea's Average Ultra-High-Speed Internet Speed 171.12Mbps, Ranked 34th Worldwide"
-Ministry of Science and ICT "Limitations in Comparison Due to Non-Disclosure of Measurement Conditions, Methods, and Details" Rebuttal

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The Ministry of Science and ICT of South Korea has stated that there are "limitations to objective comparison" regarding the survey results from a U.S. market research firm which showed that South Korea's average ultra-high-speed internet speed has fallen outside the top 30 globally, significantly lowering its infrastructure competitiveness. They said the results are from an unreliable survey and difficult to trust.

On the 4th, the Ministry of Science and ICT explained, "Ookla, which operates 'Speedtest,' does not disclose specific measurement conditions, methods, or details such as the number and performance of measurement servers in each country, total number of measurements by country, or distribution of measured speeds, making objective comparison between countries limited."

Earlier, the U.S. internet quality measurement company 'Ookla' announced survey results showing that South Korea's ultra-high-speed internet speed, which was ranked 2nd worldwide in 2019 and considered among the best globally, dropped to 34th place last year. This result was also cited in the '2022 National Intelligent Informatization White Paper' published by the National Information Society Agency (NIA) at the end of last month.

On the same day, the Ministry of Science and ICT referred again to the recently announced results of the '2022 Telecommunication Service Coverage Inspection and Quality Evaluation.' It stated that ultra-high-speed internet speeds of 500Mbps and 1Gbps both improved compared to the previous year.

Specifically, the average download speed for the 1Gbps product was 980.86Mbps, and for the 500Mbps product, it was 493.34Mbps. Both products showed improvements over the previous year's figures of 962.62Mbps and 470.08Mbps, respectively.

The Ministry emphasized, "The number of internet subscribers with speeds of 100Mbps or higher per 100 residents in South Korea is 40.4, and the proportion of fiber-optic cable-based lines among all wired internet lines (86.61%) is among the highest in the world."

Meanwhile, the NIA, which cited Ookla's survey results, has removed the relevant statistics from the online version of the white paper. The speed test statistics are also expected to be deleted from the white paper to be published in book form on the 30th of this month.