Korea Telecom - Watch List 2009

Korea Telecom: The incumbent telco in Korea went the unusual route of offering video-on-demand before linear IPTV, but one year ago this month it resolved a dispute with national TV broadcasters that allowed its linear offering to proceed. The telco's total TV subscriber take stood at 988,000 last week, according to the Korea Communications Commission, with more than 700,000 subscriptions coming via the rapidly-growing broadcast offering. KT is looking to invest $1.5 billion in IPTV over the next few years, but should be closely tracked by competitors SK Broadband and LG Dacom. Watch out for KT and friend: everything in South Korea's telecom market tends to happen at light speed.