IT powerhouse still a work in progress

[THE INVESTOR] Ministers, government officials, and information technology industry leaders flocked to Cancun, Mexico to participate in the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy, a conference for the global IT sector, being held from June 21 to 23.

The ministerial meeting is meaningful, in that participants will check the economic and social influence of the internet, based on the Seoul Declaration, adopted in Korea in 2008, and Internet Policymaking Principles in 2011, and discuss the prospect of further changes and related policy issues. It is also meaningful on a personal level since it is the second ministerial meeting for me. A variety of topics, including the openness of the Internet, convergence of technologies, the Internet of Things, digital trust and job creation, will be discussed in this meeting.

We have witnessed various achievements of the Internet. The commercialization of smartphones led the era of mobile informatization, where various applications and contents can be downloaded through app stores and where information is available at anytime, anywhere. People communicate with others by using social networking services, such as KakaoTalk, Line and Facebook. They search information through portals, such as Naver, Daum and Google, on a daily basis. Video streaming services, such as TV Cast of Naver and YouTube of Google, and over-the-top services, such as Tving of CJ HelloVision and Netflix, are available through advanced ultra-high speed infrastructure. Data services -- often dubbed as ICBM (IoT, Cloud, Big Data, Mobile) -- provide people an opportunity to advance into the hyper-connected era.

Meanwhile, the commercialization of IPTV, and mergers and acquisitions within fixed and mobile communications sectors in the late 2000s -- often called bundling -- accelerated competition across different industries. Although there is a fierce controversy over the recent M&A attempt by SK Broadband and CJ HelloVision in the multi-channel pay broadcasting market, such move signals the restructuring of the industries that combines broadcasting and communications is underway.

General program providers such as JTBC have been growing into a formidable force against terrestrial broadcasting systems that has long maintained a dominant position in the media market. Global K-pop events, such as K-CON and MAMA, both of which are organized by CJ E&M, feature diverse aspects of the Korean culture and are expanding their presence in the global market. Mobile messenger Line has been appealing to people in Asian countries such as Japan and Thailand through “glocalization.” Such successes are based on the power of openness and innovation.

Nevertheless, there still is a pile of problems to solve. In order for mutual growth in the IT ecosystem, a balanced system should be designed, so that a fair share is given to contents and application service providers, while continuous investment for the advancement of network also needs to be made. Internet service providers should have a clear sense of responsibility, as the internet has grown greatly to have significant influence on people and market.

Rules for competition, such as bundling, which encourages inter-competition, but raises anticompetitive concerns, should be monitored and checked comprehensively. One more aspect to consider is how to lessen the burdens of household’s high communications expenditure in the nation which boasts the highest penetration rate of smartphone, at 70 percent, in the world.

At the same time, measures to beef up digital security are desperately required, as crimes related to the invasion of privacy keep increasing as the net connectivity expands. The ever-slowing global economy, since the financial crisis in 2008, keeps young people out of decent jobs.

Under the circumstances, systematic support for young minds to start their own business with innovative technologies should be established and unnecessary regulations should be lifted. It is important to make education and training of IT technologies available to as many people as possible. Otherwise, IT might give wealth to a small number of people with technological background or bring damage drastically to offline industries.

Work efficiency that is achieved with IT should be fairly shared between employers and employees and the benefit of IT should be devoted to the advancement of human rights. Notwithstanding openness, stimulated freedom of thinking and expression, Korea has a stronger tendency for regulation and control than most countries in the world, which is another obstacle we face. In addition, preservation of locality and national sovereignty of each country are also issues to resolve, even though the Internet has made the world as one.

The level of Korea’s information infrastructure is better than any other countries and that is the reason why it is called an IT powerhouse. In order to take it to a higher level and overcome the current economic slump, however, we should focus on and develop the “soft” part of IT sophisticatedly up to the cutting edge.

The author is an economics professor at Hansung University and serves as a vice chair of the working party on communications and infrastructures and services policy of the OECD.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)