Samsung Electronics and South Korea incumbent, KT, have teamed up to jointly promote KT's new IPTV service with discounted large screen televisions. Samsung is offering 42-inch plasma display panels (PDP) and 40-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) "Bordeaux'' TVs at specially discounted prices to new subscribers who applied for the new Mega TV service.
South Korea is considered one of the most sophisticated Internet markets in the world and is keenly watched as a market innovator. Korea enjoys broadband reach in excess of 50 per cent homes and has median download speeds of 45mbps compared with say the US which has a media speed of 1.9 mbps, according to a recent report commissioned by the Communications Workers Union. The television offering comes as KT is also teaming up with Sony to be the first country to roll out an IPTV version of the Sony's Play Station 3.
Mega TV offers programming from all major operators plus in July launched a video-on-demand (VOD) service, which had 148,00 subscribers as of the end of September according to KT.
"We are positive the new service will attract one million subscribers by 2008,'' a KT official said.
For More:
- Samsung, KT Join Forces to Propel IPTV Korea Times Report