Sources said on August 13th that the Ministry of Information and Communications selected the home network as a major next growth engine when it developed a Digital Home Promotion Plan in May 2003, with an aim to providing the service to 10 million households, but as of now it only covers less than 2.5 million.
Worse yet, the actual market size is estimated to be smaller, as the figure includes subscribers to interactive digital broadcasting services in addition to home automation, a major item of the home network industry.
Some pointed out that the Ministry has not been consistent with its policy because it changed the name of project several times since the IT839 strategy was developed in 2003, presenting a rosy picture for the home network industry.
In 2004, the two items of home network services and home network devices were included in the IT 839 strategy. But they were changed into u-home services last year, and device sector was integrated into broadband facilities.
In addition, the u-IT839 was recently rearranged into 10 major strategic items, reducing the u-home service to a secondary item to the u-computing.
The Ministry has already stopped providing a budget. Pilot projects except a single item of u-health were suspended in 2005 earlier than scheduled, and the plan to invest a total of 645.1 billion won (US$692.0 million) from 2003 to this year was also scaled back.
In a word, as the Ministry in charge shows little willingness to support it, the industry has become a hot potato.
An official at the Ministry of Information and Communication said: "It is true that at the timing of developing the IT 839 strategy, the government was dreaming about a rosy picture. But now it is scaling back direct government support, believing that the future growth should be left to the private market which has grown mature enough."
However, the Ministry has been blamed for its inactive attitude which weakens the market, under the circumstances where the overall home network market is sluggish due to a smaller number of new housing construction and tougher regulations this year.
One source said: "The Ministry presented us a rosy picture only four years ago, and now it is trying to get their hands off, which makes us really frustrated. Now it is time to seek minimum government policy measures to vitalize the market."
