The government's internet regulator, Ofcom, recently heralded the arrival of "broadband Britain" as part of its quarterly audit of the UK's media landscape. The number of subscribers with high-speed internet access, it said, had overtaken the number of traditional dial-up subscribers for the first time. Some 8.1m UK households - nearly 30% of the population - now have a broadband subscription: a fifteen-fold increase in just three years.

The speed at which broadband has taken root marks an astonishing turnaround. Broadband Britain is growing at the fastest rate in the G7. But compared to broadband's real pace-setters, Scandinavia and the far east, Britain remains stuck somewhere in the middle of the grid. The race leader, by some distance. is South Korea, whose thirst for high-speed internet bandwidth is matched only for by its appetite for red hot spicy food.

Of the 16m Korean households, at least 78% have an active broadband connection - more than twice that of the UK. More than 12m individual broadband lines feed a country of 48 million people, pumping data between four and 100 times faster than typical broadband connections in the UK. According to recent reports, Koreans spend more than 20 hours a week surfing the internet - more than twice as long as Britons - and online shopping accounts for 12% of retail sales.

A recent global survey by Chief Executive magazine estimated that nearly 10% of all broadband connections - and a staggering 30% of wireless hotspots - are located in South Korea. Ofcom's claim, therefore, that the 30% reach of broadband means Britain is "accelerating into the digital age" needs putting in perspective. In terms of both speed and reach, team UK is not catching up - it is in danger of being lapped.

The rate at which data flows through the internet is measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Most domestic broadband subscribers enjoy rates of 1Mbps. The standard South Korean connection is routinely four times that - and can be as much as eight times that. Even 100 times faster - 100Mbps - is becoming increasingly common. Chin Daeje, South Korea's communications minister, recently predicted that 70% of the population would enjoy rates of 20mps in about two years, and that by 2010, "the bulk of Korean households" would have 100Mbps. Few doubt his word.

So what exactly happens when you plug a whole country into a superfast internet connection? "People are obsessed with internet in Korea," says Jee Hyun Oh, a native of Seoul now studying in London. "It is like an addiction to cigarettes or drugs. You can do it everywhere: in a hair salon or clothes shop or restaurant ... Some salons have a computer just for customers to use while they are waiting."

Much has been made of the partnership between South Korea's government and private sector telecoms companies to lace the country with an enviable fibre optic network. Korea, spurred by the deep recession triggered by the IMF crisis of 1997, embraced the internet "because they sensed the older economic model had failed them," says economist Dominique Dwor-Frecaut.

But why is the internet so popular in South Korea? Some say it is because the internet is not Japanese. Sales of Sony PlayStation consoles, for instance, are feeble in Korea, while PC games are very popular. This, says Miss Oh, is perhaps the real reason why Koreans took to the internet so readily: it's a rapacious appetite for computer games.

In 1998, a real-time strategy computer game called Starcraft went online in the US and quickly spread to Korea where it remains a popular pastime, enjoying televised tournaments and top players who have become household names. But as the addiction took hold, millions of users soon began to face large internet bills - the creeping toll of all-night sessions on metered dial-up connections quickly made it cheaper for the legions of bedroom addicts to subscribe to broadband. "[Take-up] was so sudden after that," says Oh.

South Korea's appetite for broadband may have been fed by Starcraft but it soon tasted more wholesome succour. When a wave of corruption scandals rocked the country in 2002 the internet soon became a political tool. With the traditional media still dominated by the ruling party, Koreans, particularly young people, looked to the web as a way of upending the establishment. Many believe that this movement led directly to the election of the current president, Roh Moo-hyun.

The whiff of political scandal still clings to South Korea's ruling elite, but few doubt that the internet has changed the wider society for good. Korea's newspapers are already clicked-out by upstart websites, such as Oh My News, and the younger generation are busy reshaping the old craft. The kind of "citizen journalism" that so formed our perception of the London bombings has long scooped Korea's mainstream media. Oh My News, for example, receives nearly 70% of its copy from 38,000 civilian hacks. Many see the influence of the US beginning to wane, as Koreans search elsewhere for their daily fix of news and comment.

The speed at which Korea has raced down the information superhighway shows little sign of slowing. Last week, the government announced the latest phase of its broadband adventure. So-called ubiquitous communications, or "u-Korea", will cover most urban areas and major highways with wireless internet bandwidth by June next year.

Will the internet on the freeway at speeds of 60km per hour be fast enough to keep up with Korea's astonishing thirst? Probably. One thing the Koreans can't sort out is the traffic on their roads.

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