Korea

Strand Consult was back in 2002 the first to document in a series of reports that South Korea, not Japan, was the 3G leader in the mobile wireless industry. Already in 2001, South Korea consolidated from a 5 to 3 operator market and accelerated to transition from CDMA to WCDMA. South Korea, the world’s #1 broadband market, provides a valuable use case for regulators which demonstrates that concentrated markets can deliver value to consumers through high investment, competitive prices, and advanced service offerings.

In 2022 Strand Consult published more groundbreaking research on South Korea in “Netflix v. SK Broadband. The David and Goliath Battle for Broadband Fair Cost Recovery in South Korea” which describes how one operator challenged the global streaming giant and ignited a global movement for broadband cost recovery. As the report documents, this lawsuit has inspired operators and policymakers around the world to examine and challenge the aggressive, anticompetitive tactics by Big Tech platforms. Strand Consult runs a global project on broadband cost recovery to create transparency and reduce distortion in the market for broadband access.