[by James Pearce] Hope this happens in U.S. too: The Korean government is pushing the mobile telcos in the country to open their networks with the intention of creating a wireless network as efficient and popular as the World Wide Web…

“The companies are being criticized for limiting users’ access to their own portal sites, technically blocking them from visiting other firms’ portal sites. They are also blamed for not publicizing technical information, preventing smaller firms from setting up their own sites on the network...Currently, the three mobile carriers—SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom—require their subscribers to access the mobile network by visiting their respective mobile Internet portals—Nate, Magic-N and eZ-I.”

The Ministry of Information and Communication has told reporters the mobile Internet service has the potential to become like the World Wide Web, considering there are 35 million mobile-phone users in South Korea.There’s talk of punishment for carriers which don’t respond to the governments imprecations…