Korea leads the world in wireless broadband use

The OECD has just updated the data in its Broadband Portal, and on one of the measures, "wireless broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants," South Korea leads the world.  In a sense, this is not surprising since Korea made a bold decision in the early 1990s to adopt CDMA technology as its mobile communications standard.  In the ensuing years it became the first nation to commercialize CDMA and by the turn of the millenium virtually all Koreans were using 3G CDMA-based mobile phones, capable of accessing the internet and data services.  However, things change and today South Korea is leading the world in implementation and use of LTE networks and the number of people using LTE phones is rapidly rising.   As shown by the accompanying graphic (click to see a full size version) the OECD data show that Korea has become the first nation in the world where wireless broadband subscriptions exceed 100 percent of the population.