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The success of Broadband Internet access is something the e-business industry is looking forward to. It has been a long wait though. Services like Video on Demand (VOD) has been talked about for nearly a decade now. The Internet community grew in leaps and bounds. But access was agonizingly slow in most places. For those spending a long time in the online world, the bills at the end of the month dissuaded them from doing so. Many Telco companies in US started charging special low rates for calls made to the ISP & ISPs were involved in a price war in many parts of Europe, where free internet was not hard to find. Still net access was something that was billed by the hour, something that was frustratingly slow in most places, that is, if you could dial and get through. In the corporate world, connectivity came at a cost. Choices of technology were few if any.

Cable Internet, DSL & wireless broadband slowly came into the picture. Life with '24 hours on' Internet was an experience in itself for home users. Internet was no more 'rationed'. Internet no more meant logging on, downloading mails, replying to a few, sending a couple of new ones & at the most, visiting a few websites, all this in 20-30 min. Surfing the Internet became more exploratory. With Internet becoming a part of daily life, users are expected to use the Internet for more than just email & chat.

"This country must be aggressive on the expansion of broadband... It is time for us to move with an agenda." US president Bush said in the "21st Century High Tech Forum", as the White House calls it. The Bells (the four largest telecom companies in US) claim they have no incentive to roll out broadband more rapidly if they are compelled by law to share their lines with rivals. The Bush administration may soon provide this much needed incentive.

In UK, Oftel has ordered British Telecom (BT) to improve access to high speed internet lines for businesses by making changes to the wholesale terms it offers other phone firms. Oftel said it was ordering BT to make improvements after completing the first phase of an investigation into allegations of barriers to competition. BT has also launched self-install ADSL, which is expected to boost the market as it did in US & even Germany. UK has a lot of catching up to do, considering Jupiter MMXI figures, which suggest only around 0.3 per cent of UK's 13 million or so Internet users are broadband-enabled.

Down Australia the situation is no different. "In terms of statistical benchmarking, Australia does not perform well in relation to the take up of broadband Internet access at home", says a National Office for the Information Economy (Australia) report. In short, governments around the world understand the importance of broadband to their national economy. The problem is there is no successful model to emulate. Frequent technology changes create a monopoly like situation in the marketplace & prices remain high.

The best success story available today is without doubt that of South Korea. South Korea is the leader in broadband access, with 87% of the Internet connections being broadband. The government's ambitious vision and consistent policy served as the driving force behind the broadband boom in Korea. The government linked 144 major cities with fiber optic cables in December 2000, completing the first nationwide high-speed network in the world.

``Today, with the newest system for creating wealth still in its infant stages, there are no proven models for Korea to follow. While Korea can learn from the experience of other countries, there is no one to emulate. Each country making the transition is now compelled to invent and reinvent, to customize its strategy rather than adopting someone else's. In a sense, Korea needs to invent its future.'' - Alvin Toffler

Once these problems get ironed out, will users do what companies would want them to do? Will they spend money online, click on their banner ads & start making more expensive purchases online, making the Internet a viable medium to sell? If you look back at that list again, nothing warrants the need of a 'broadband' connection. All that is possible through dial up too. Users need to get used to the Internet. Of course an 'always on' connection may go a long way in achieving this.

In the first half of 2000, online gaming fetched US$46 million in South Korea, according to Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific. 12.3 per cent of Internet users in South Korea shop online. There are 1,800 online shopping malls in Korea catering to a market size of US$566.1 million. The problem with the broadband market is that due to the low penetration worldwide right now, applications have not yet been built specifically for broadband users. It is expected that once there is substantial penetration, applications will be developed, which will aid in home shopping, reduced commuting, entertainment services, conventional telephone services and telemedicine. It is however difficult to predict as to what uses exactly broadband will be put to.

The recently concluded FIFA world cup 2002 is an example of the use of broadband connections. KT (Korea state owned telecom giant) was part of an elite group of multinational corporations, including Toshiba, Philips, JVC, Coca-Cola, Fuji, MasterCard and Avaya, which had official partnerships for the World Cup. Offering high-tech wireless broadband Internet technology and data transfer speed of up to 13 megabits per second at 10 World Cup venues for foreign and domestic media, KT promoted its reputation as a proactive leader in the IT industry. The high-speed Internet network enabled viewers around the world to watch all football games and video footage through FIFA's official website at www.fifaworldcup.com. The service was being offered for the first time ever & was possible due to the existing extensive broadband network.

With a networked world where majority of Internet users surf through a broadband connection, the second wave of e-business will hit the corporate world. The way companies do business will change completely once again. Corporate strategies will have to be aligned with the shift in patterns of Internet usage. The Internet's second coming will herald a revolution larger in stature that the advent of the Internet itself.

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