Korea Thrunet's Average Subscriber Growth of 60,000 Continues in July

ISP Business, August, 2000

Korea Thrunet Co. Ltd., a broadband Internet-access service provider and a data communications provider, on August 7,2000, announced another strong month of growth in its broadband Internet subscriber base. In July 2000, the company recorded the net addition of 59,028 subscribers for a total of 470,992 subscribers at the end of the month.

The company is particularly satisfied with this increase in its subscriber base because promotional discounts on subscription fees and installation fees have been discontinued, and no discounts were offered to reduce the full monthly cable modem lease fee payments of KRW 5000 required by all newly added subscribers in July.

The company has engaged in a policy of managed growth since May in anticipation of its ability to continue gaining customers despite the sharp reductions in promotions. The continuation of strong monthly subscriber gains justifies the company's strategy to shore up revenues by implementing full charges for its services and indicates that demand for Thrunet access services remains robust.

Korea Thrunet has also incrementally expanded its network accessibility by adding 300,000 homes passed in its own HFC network areas, again in line with its careful implementation of network deployment. With the company's aggregated accessibility of 6.5 million homes passed, Thrunet is able to cover 45 percent of the nation's 14.3 million total households. It is the most extensive cable network coverage of homes passed in Korea. Currently, the company has approximately 50 percent of its homes passed territory in its own HFC network areas, which has sharply reduced its dependency on the PowerComm network.

Furthermore, the company confirmed that its HFC network has been deployed in the most desirable demographic areas -- in densely populated metropolitan centers and selectively in higher income regions of Korea. The need to further expand its network footprint will now be minimal as the company shifts its focus to increasing the penetration of subscribers on its presently deployed network. The overall subscriber breakdown of Korea Thrunet between leased and owned networks is 77.5 percent versus 22.5 percent. However, the trend clearly shows a shifting monetum towards adding more subscribers on the self-owned HFC network. The company notes, however, that it will continue to experience strong subscriber growth in PowerComm HFC areas as well.