Your cost for wired internet at home will be 25,000 to 30,000 won per month (about US$23-27). If you share an apartment with other teachers, you'll probably split this cost, and you won't have to sweat the setup. If you have your own private apartment, you'll probably need some help from a Korean friend when you sign up for your intenet.

You can always use your mobile phone, but the data won't be cheap. A mi-fi hotspot might be a better deal, but it still won't give you unlimited data. See the Mobile Phones FAQ entry for more information on these options.

Korea also still has a fair number of PC-Bangs (literally, "PC rooms," or what we'd call Internet cafes). There you can use fast broadband for 1000 to 1500 won (about US$1 or so) per hour. The computers run Korean Windows, so good luck with that; but if you can do what you want to do in Internet Explorer, you should be OK.

One warning, though: PC-Bangs get crowded, noisy, and smoky at peak gamer periods. The nonsmoking areas are mostly useless. To avoid this, go weekdays from late morning to early afternoon.

So, getting fast Internet is not a problem. Getting free (as in freedom) Internet is. Korea was the world's first country to censor the net. They started in 1995. Isn't that special? It means that websites that Big Brother doesn't approve of are taken down if they're in Korea, and blocked if they're not.

Subjects under the censor's hammer include:

• Political dissent and activism against goverment policies (Korea has no First Amendment equivalent)

• Gambling, pornography, and nudity

• Illegal drug information

• LGBT issues (!)

• Some cosmetics and health foods (!)

• North Korea (!!)

In 2003, before Twitter and Facebook, young progressives got together through such web portals as OhMyNews and elected Roh Moo-hyun president. Five years later, when the conservative Grand National Party returned to power and Lee Myung-bak was elected president, the GNP set out to ensure that that wouldn't happen again. They also wanted to be sure that no one could oppose or criticize them without being named, harassed, and/or arrested. They passed a law effectively making net anonymity illegal. Websites with over 100,000 visitors per day were required to register their visitors with their real names and Korean national ID numbers.

And yes, they busted bloggers.

In 2011 and 2012, Korea's Constitution Court ruled that the government couldn't restrict online political campaigning, and also overturned some parts of the 2008 law. But the ruling had loopholes, so Koreans still aren't always able to stay nameless on the net. Reporters Without Borders says that Korea's net censorship is about equivalent to Russia's. That should give you pause.

As of 2022, Freedom House rated South Korea's net as "partly free," 67 out of 100, where 100 is a perfect score. The US scored 76 and Canada 87. This put Korea in the same range as Ghana, Columbia, Kenya, and Hungary.

As for the filtering and takedowns, that's just plain odious. Your defense against this is the same as it is anywhere else that censors the net: sign up for a vpn in a more informationally-enlightened nation.