Drop Zone

While Korea might be a country that's proud of its connected society, after three months we still can't get our Internet Service Provider, LG Powercom, to provide anything more than the sorriest connection I've had the displeasure to use in years. Every now and again we phone them to ask why our connection keeps dropping, but they haven't a clue. Problems are escalated to the network team, who promise to call us back but contrary to most standards of Korean customer service never do. And when it comes to the question of why several of our favourite websites are inaccessible through their network, the only suggestion they can offer, incredibly, is that we switch to MegaPass - one of their rivals - who have no problem accessing these servers. Unfortunately though, they have us over a barrel - MegaPass can only provide us with a relatively slow ADSL connection in our building, so we're pretty much stuck with LG if we want to have a broadband connection of any kind.

In recent days connections have deteriorated further, and LG have started scheduling several hours of downtime for 'maintenance', which suggests that all is not well with them. I suppose this carries with it some hope that they'll eventually get to the bottom of their problems, but I won't hold my breath. One can only assume that LG don't do a lot of business with PC Bangs or at least have a better network backbone for them because if customers in those places had to put up with what we're experiencing I think there'd be a riot. Meanwhile, I'll have to endure the dropping connections affecting my work, while promising myself that the next apartment building we move into will be one serviced by a reliable Internet connection, provided by MegaPass, as LG recommends.

And every once in a while, there'll be yet more coverage in the UK on some amazing aspect of Korea's Internet society, and friends from back home will ask with great expectation what kind of connection I have, expecting some answer in the hundreds of megabits - but my answer is simply this - "a terrible one". Don't believe the hype.