Approximately 10 p.m. is Peak Time for EBS’s Internet Lecture

Though the Education Broadcast System (EBS)’s internet lecture of the Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT) started at around 2:33 a.m. on April 1, the predicted “connection crisis” has not occurred yet.

Because the starting time of the first lecture was set at night, the largest number of simultaneously connected users has not reached the 2,000 level, and the amount of simultaneous downloading showed 2,000 people per hour. According to this result, the first predicted crisis that tens of thousands of users might simultaneously connect to the server of EBSi, the EBS’s internet provider, has not materialized.

However, in some part of the country, as the users rushed to watch the EBS’s internet lectures in the morning of April 1, some users underwent an inconvenience in registering to the site.

No Big Crisis—

EBS has disclosed that the number of users connected to the EBSi showed the highest level, 14,000 at around 10:40 a.m. on this day. At EBSi, approximately 200,000 users simultaneously used the service.

As for the video lecture server, which permits 100,000 simultaneous connections, 1,439 users at 10 a.m. was the highest number so far. As for downloading, the largest number was 2,078 at around 1 to 2 p.m. As of 3 p.m., the total number of subscriber is a total of 64,050.

“As the lecture was started in the morning and has dispersed the demand, no particular problem has occurred so far. The Internet network of Korea Telecom, Dacom, Hanafos, KNIX, Thrunet showed good conditions,” remarked EBS.

Expecting that the number of EBS users will attain its highest level at 10 p.m. on April 1, EBS has prepared for the heavy traffic.

“My kid failed to register for the site, so I downloaded the lecture in the daytime for him,” said Lee Yoon-kyung, 44, a mother of second year high school student, showing that some of the users suffered inconvenience in subscription.

Calm Ambience—

Students and their parents showed a tendency that they would decide as to whether or not to use the service after looking thoroughly into the EBS’ lecture.

“Because I haven’t gathered enough information about EBS’ lecture, I will watch for some time,” remarked Jung Kye-suk, 44, a mother of third year high school student, adding, “If the quality of EBS’s lecture is better than that of the cram schools, I will make my child quit the cram school. However, I am not sure about it right now.”

“I will watch the policies of the school and other student’s reaction to them,” remarked a certain Park, a parent of second year high school student, 41.

“I will not watch or use the lectures and services of EBS,” said a certain Jung, 17, a K high school student in Seoul, adding, “I will do the self-studies with the text book or attend the cram school, which summarizes the contents of the EBS lectures.”

On this day, EBSi uploaded only 12 series of lectures, which target the beginning and advanced level, such as the two Korean language lectures, four natural sciences lectures, and four second foreign language lectures. A total of 265 intermediate level lectures and lectures targeting first and second year high school students that were broadcasted at EBS Plus1 channel since February have also been uploaded.

“The timetable for broadcasting is too complicated to figure out at once,” said a user, adding, “Please divide the time table into several parts to see it conveniently.”

Schools and Cram Schools are Busy—

Normal schools, which try to utilize the lectures of EBS, are busy downloading and editing the video lecture files from the EBSi internet site, and patching up the internet facilities set up in the school.

“I have organized the downloaded EBS program on the school’s internet server, and will allow every student to freely give access to it in the near future,” said Lee Ok-kuen, the chief research teacher of Kyung-bok High School in Seoul.

“I will open the three computer rooms of the school to the students to watch the lectures from the internet,” said Kim Myung-hwan, a teacher of Kyunggi High School in Seoul, which has newly organized the internet server recently.

Many cram schools have also been busy preparing their countermeasures against the EBS lectures and grasping the reactions of the students.