S. Korea to deliver gigabit-speed broadband

South Korea is looking to give its broadband a tenfold speed boost as it looks to prevent the country from being overwhelmed by the explosive growth in data traffic.

Yonhap News Agency reported Monday the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning has picked five companies, including KT Corp and SK Telecom, as the trial service providers to kickstart the service.

It added that such broadband speeds should be available in most parts of the country by 2017, joining the 12,000 households currently involved in the trial service package.

According to an Akamai report last August, South Korea came in second in terms of broadband speeds for both mobile and fixed connections with an average peak connection speed of 47.8 megabits per second (Mbps).