A business daily reported that Korea Telecom, South Korea's largest carrier, is set to break into Japan's fledgling broadband market starting this summer by offering Net access through digital subscriber lines (DSL).

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said that Korea Telecom <30200> hopes to use its expertise from its home DSL market, where it had 2.4 million high-speed Internet subscribers at the end of March or nearly half of the market.

The Nihon Keizai said... by getting in early, where Japan has lagged behind in the growth of broadband Net access with only about 112,000 DSL users, Korea Telecom hopes to post 10 billion yen in sales during its first year of operation.

Korea Telecom officials in Japan could not be reached for comment.

The newspaper said... Korea Telecom will begin services as early as July and offer its DSL connecting equipment for homes and offices at 20 percent below market rates.

DSL providers argue that Japan has been slow to provide broadband services because Japan's dominant carrier, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) <9432> hampered their efforts to establish their own services.