Few months ago, around April 2005 I had the opportunity to represents Indonesia upon invitation from South Korea government in relation to the mobile telecommunication business exchange program. Beside Indonesia, there were other countries; Spain, Germany, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Hongkong, Denmark, USA and few more.
What interest me was not on the event itself, but on knowledge and experience exchanges between participants. Most of us were either service providers, network operators or developers that made the event a worthwhile trip. South Korea was a great host, not only we were given all the required tools from translator, booth and so forth but also the charms of its people. Being a host, they were also eager to show off their technology capabilities by claiming that they're catching up with Japan and USA; true... The innovations in mobile technology are surely there, however close copy of technology still reminiscent on some products.
Funny things were not on the mobile technology but on transportation. The Korean produced vehicles with designs similar to well known brands and models from Japan or Europe with slight modification to suit the market. From bikes, cars and buses have significant look to the European and Japanese counterparts, even I mistook a Hyundai for a Cadillac or a KIA for Toyota... Did they pay for copyright? I wouldn't think so... Most of products that I saw there were either good replicas or complete rip-offs. Nuff said about the cars, Korean has good eyes for others too, including cell phones but the copying only goes as far as look and feel, the remaining are theirs (or are they?). Well, with large corporation roaming the world, I wouldn't be surprised if things are shared - Unlike the retail world, commoners like you and me would face problem doing P2P file sharing, but for enterprises such action seems to be forgiven.
Fact is that in most part of the city, wireless broadband is free and cell phone tariffs are cheap. I rented a cellphone upon my arrival at the airport and only paying around $15/day including call and SMS tariffs. Then there was the broadband internet, almost anywhere in the city (we were staying in Seoul) you can log on to any providers; some requires you to have email address with them but there are public ones too with enough bandwidth to watch hi-quality streaming video in full screen. Envious? Definitely! I wish we have similar infrastructures here in Indonesia.
More on Korea Trip in part 2.
What interest me was not on the event itself, but on knowledge and experience exchanges between participants. Most of us were either service providers, network operators or developers that made the event a worthwhile trip. South Korea was a great host, not only we were given all the required tools from translator, booth and so forth but also the charms of its people. Being a host, they were also eager to show off their technology capabilities by claiming that they're catching up with Japan and USA; true... The innovations in mobile technology are surely there, however close copy of technology still reminiscent on some products.
Funny things were not on the mobile technology but on transportation. The Korean produced vehicles with designs similar to well known brands and models from Japan or Europe with slight modification to suit the market. From bikes, cars and buses have significant look to the European and Japanese counterparts, even I mistook a Hyundai for a Cadillac or a KIA for Toyota... Did they pay for copyright? I wouldn't think so... Most of products that I saw there were either good replicas or complete rip-offs. Nuff said about the cars, Korean has good eyes for others too, including cell phones but the copying only goes as far as look and feel, the remaining are theirs (or are they?). Well, with large corporation roaming the world, I wouldn't be surprised if things are shared - Unlike the retail world, commoners like you and me would face problem doing P2P file sharing, but for enterprises such action seems to be forgiven.
Fact is that in most part of the city, wireless broadband is free and cell phone tariffs are cheap. I rented a cellphone upon my arrival at the airport and only paying around $15/day including call and SMS tariffs. Then there was the broadband internet, almost anywhere in the city (we were staying in Seoul) you can log on to any providers; some requires you to have email address with them but there are public ones too with enough bandwidth to watch hi-quality streaming video in full screen. Envious? Definitely! I wish we have similar infrastructures here in Indonesia.
More on Korea Trip in part 2.
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