
Telecommunication in South Korea
Compared to the United States, South Korea is at the forefront of the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +82, there were a total of 96.07 million connections in 2021. Among them were 72.86 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.4 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 315,697 webhosts, South Korea is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 307,856 of these, or about 98 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: South Korea
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 99.87 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, South Korea ranks 29th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 95 Mbit/second (13th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, South Korea comes 4th with a download speed of 125.17 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 17 Mbit was only enough for 14th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in October 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in South Korea from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in South Korea 1998 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | South Korea Total | South Korea percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 22.94 m | 44.34 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 23.21 m | 44.86 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 72.86 m | 140.80 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |