Meanwhile, Song Gil-ho, the department head of PC communication 【Hi】, was extremely busy traveling around during the Chuseok holiday.
He had vaguely predicted that 【Jungle】 would introduce a news service, and upon further investigation, he discovered that 【Jungle】 employees were frequently visiting media companies.
He decided that he couldn’t leave it solely to the sales team and took it upon himself to manage the media companies.
Despite working without a break during Chuseok, mobilizing himself and his subordinates, it seemed he had recently achieved some success.
‘Phew, thank goodness.’
The media companies had promised to cooperate for the time being.
Of course, this came with the condition that it was ‘temporary.’
They conveyed that if the portal site 【Jungle】 showed more influence in the future, they would have no choice but to form an agreement to secure online subscriptions.
This was an achievement made possible by the four major PC communications that united afterward.
‘We also need to enter the portal service eventually.’
The problem was the paid subscribers who used the flat-rate system.
It was too difficult to give them up at this stage.
If immediate profits were not guaranteed, how would they cover labor and equipment costs?
No matter how much 【Jungle】 showed a model of advertising revenue, it was difficult to seek changes easily with the system already established by PC communication.
‘Still, we have to prepare. Otherwise, 【Jungle】 will completely take over this market.’
Song Gil-ho had ambitions.
He wanted to become a legend in the Korean information and communication industry.
He was already breaking the record as the ‘youngest’ through an unparalleled promotion.
But this year, he encountered a stumbling block.
It was none other than 【Jungle】.
It was the first trial, but Song Gil-ho thought he could overcome it.
Tring-tring-tring!
The phone rang, and he quickly picked up the receiver.
(It’s me, Jung-hoon.)
“Ah, Manager Jung.”
The caller was a manager from PC 【Cheonri】.
Jung-hoon was the person who had cooperated the most in the efforts to counter 【Jungle】.
(I called because there’s something I’m a bit worried about.)
“What is it?”
(I heard 【Jungle】 is persistently visiting media companies, asking to provide news services.)
“I already know that, and that’s why we’ve done our best to manage it, haven’t we?”
(That’s true, but if even one person from the media side defects, they might all rush over.)
“Don’t worry about that. They’ll wait until we properly transition to a portal site.”
Although the media companies had never made such a promise, Song Gil-ho subtly signaled it during their meetings.
He assured the worried Jung-hoon, thinking that they wouldn’t move easily since they had received some benefits.
“Our strategy is working perfectly right now. The fact that not a single company is providing news services to 【Jungle】 is our greatest achievement.”
(Still… I feel like we might need to start the portal site soon…)
“As I mentioned before, the internet speed doesn’t support it. Even if 【Jungle】 provides news services, it will be problematic. People will get frustrated reading slow news as the servers get overloaded. Then they’ll realize that electronic news from PC communication is superior.”
This was Song Gil-ho’s belief.
He hung up the phone, but his heart sank at the report that followed immediately.
“【Sejong Daily】 announced that they would provide news services to 【Jungle】.”
“What?”
“The news is in today’s evening paper, along with 【Jungle】’s internet address.”
“……!”
“【Jungle】’s portal site is also the same. They announced that they would start providing 【Sejong Daily】’s news next week.”
“What were you doing until things got this bad?”
“…”
He scolded an innocent employee.
He didn’t know where to vent his frustration, so he took it out on the employee.
It was a common occurrence, so the reporting employee remained silent.
Instead, he started thinking in his head.
‘PC communication is like a sinking ship. Should I switch over?’
Suddenly, stories of former colleagues like Woo Sang-won who moved to 【Jungle】 seemed to ring in his ears.
- We work six days a week, but if you choose night duty, you can work only five days. The work environment and pay are the best. Even the CEO gave a 200% Chuseok bonus recently. I didn’t expect it since I had just joined.
It’s an irresistible condition.
So he listened once more to the question gnawing at his heart.
― Should I take this chance to knock on 【Jungle】’s door?
Unlike 【Hi】, 【Jungle】 was full of energy.
Finally, 【Sejong Daily】 began providing news services, adding new content to 【Jungle】’s portal.
And on the first day of the news service, Kang Dong-ho, who had pushed for this, spoke very quickly.
“Following 【Sejong Daily】, 【Goryeo Daily】 and 【Dongyang Daily】 also contacted us to provide news services.”
“That’s great news.”
“I think 【Hanmaeum Newspaper】, 【Gyeongseong Newspaper】, and 【Sesang Newspaper】 will also agree soon, and we are negotiating with economic and sports newspapers…”
The voice, which continued to speak about the correlation between passion and fulfillment, delighted Lee Hyun-woo’s ears.
‘Nostradamus’s power is impressive.’
He was happily contemplating how to use the blog more effectively in the future.
For now, it was in a dormant state.
Too frequent predictions of the future would not only devalue it but also attract attention.
‘I can’t let anyone investigate.’
For now, his face was filled with a smile, thinking he would drop a bomb once in a while.
But he wondered if he could stay quiet as he intended.
His fingers were already itching.
He had seen Woo Sang-won and Jang Yoo-chul struggling with internet speed since the news service started.
“Ugh, ISDN is just expensive!”
“It’s supposed to be twice as fast, but this is frustrating!”
No matter how much they increased the servers, complaints about slow speeds grew with the enormous number of users.
“We managed to hold out with just the search service, email, blogs, and cafes, but expanding to news services made the slow internet speed really noticeable.”
“Indeed…”
In all honesty, Lee Hyun-woo felt the same way.
‘It’s frustratingly slow.’
In fact, the rapid spread of computers had a huge impact on other industries compared to his previous life.
However, internet speed couldn’t keep up.
The reason was simple.
It was because one company monopolized the service.
In other words, the ISDN serviced by 【Korea Telecom】 was very inefficient.
The only way to improve this was to wait for the emergence of a faster service provider.
‘No, I should guide it instead of waiting.’
With several successes under his belt, Lee Hyun-woo was confident.
Having been reborn and knowing the direction of success, he thought there was nothing he couldn’t do.
It was all a matter of time.
He had accelerated the boom in computer manufacturing, so why couldn’t he speed up the internet?
He went home that day and immediately started up his computer.
Unable to resist his itchy fingers, he opened Nostradamus’s blog again.
― The reason for the slow internet speed
― It’s because 【Korea Telecom】’s ISDN transmits data signals very inefficiently.
― So, is there no way to improve it?
― It can be easily solved by using ADSL instead of ISDN.
Both ISDN and ADSL were difficult terms, so he explained them simply.
― To put it simply, ISDN is like a congested city road, and ADSL is like an open highway.
― Is ADSL a difficult technology?
― It came out before ISDN, but strangely, 【Korea Telecom】 pushed for ISDN after running a test service for ADSL.
― The reason for the decision is likely known only to the upper management, but what’s certain is that 【Korea Telecom】 blocked 【Korea Electric Power Corporation】 from running the ADSL business.
― There are rumors of a power struggle between public enterprises, but it’s impossible to confirm.
After writing, he wondered if he had revealed too much truth.
‘Whatever, I don’t care.’
Lee Hyun-woo clicked the post, knowing it would have a significant impact.
Whatever happens, wouldn’t it lead to replacing ISDN with ADSL?
The next day happened to be the day when the core chip development of CDMA by 【Korea Information and Communication Research Institute】 was reported in the news.
Naturally, some people interested in Nostradamus paid attention to the new blog post.
Especially, there was high interest from 【Sejong Daily】 and 【Guseong】.
The current leadership and the future leaders paid attention.
This is why Kim Ah-young met her oppa, Kim Tae-hyun, at 【Seorabeol Hotel】.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean? I was visiting uncle.”
“Really?”
“You said you would find out Nostradamus’s identity.”
“Ah… that…?”
Kim Ah-young was very proud.
Especially in front of her oppa, Kim Tae-hyun.
Even now, she didn’t say she didn’t know.
“The CEO of 【Jungle】 asked me to keep it a secret, so I can’t tell you.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry to uncle, but it’s extremely private personal information, so I couldn’t tell him.”
Kim Tae-hyun’s thick eyebrows twitched.
Her words meant the CEO of 【Jungle】 had revealed Nostradamus’s identity to her.
‘If that’s the case, there’s no way she wouldn’t tell me.’
He had heard the rough story from his uncle.
His sister had said she would find out Nostradamus’s identity in exchange for providing news services.
And then, there was no news.
“Nostradamus could belong to us, 【GB】, or even 【Korea Information and Communication Research Institute】. But he exposed top-secret information in the online space.”
“So?”
“Of course, he could be legally punished. And so could the CEO of 【Jungle】 for hiding it.”
“Well, I’m not sure if there are related laws. I think it’s hard to punish him.”
His sister was right.
Although laws could be applied flexibly, the regulations related to the rapidly changing information society were quite ambiguous.
‘So that’s how it is, huh?’
In the end, Kim Tae-hyun decided to find out for himself.
As always, carrots and sticks work best for people.
But since he couldn’t use sticks on someone he didn’t know, he said to his secretary while leaving 【Seorabeol Hotel】.
“Arrange a meeting with the CEO of 【Jungle】. As soon as possible.”
“Yes, understood.”
The carrot he would use was, of course, banner ads on 【Jungle】.
【Guseong】 always tamed the press with ads.
Although 【Jungle】 was not exactly the press, the structure of earning revenue through ads was similar.
‘I must find out Nostradamus’s identity.’
