hankyoreh

A red light has flashed in the nation’s mobile communication and high-speed Internet network, which is considered to be the world’s best in terms of quality.

In this month alone, five separate accidents were recorded in the mobile communications and high-speed Internet industries. The accidents, three and two in each industry, respectively, have inconvenienced users. Meanwhile, individual companies in troubled areas are protesting to telecommunications operators about business losses caused by the telecommunications troubles.

SK Telecom’s third-generation mobile communications network failed for two consecutive days on August 20 and 21. SK Telecom said, “Subscribers in Yeongdeungpo, Gwanak and Mapo in Seoul and Goyang and Suwon in Gyeonggi provinces couldn’t use their wireless Internet service for two hours on August 20 and for about an hour on the next day.” Regarding the reason for the trouble, an SK Telecom official cited an overload of network equipment.

On August 10, the third-generation mobile communication network of KTF was out of order. KTF announced that subscribers could not use the telecommunications service for about two hours due to a problem with the third-generation network in southern Gyoenggi Province.

There also were problems in high-speed Internet networks. Problems arose at LG Dacom on August 7 and Hanaro Telecom on August 18. PC room operators or those who run home shopping Internet sites using the telecommunications networks of these companies complained about reduced sales.

As it takes just two people to make a phone call, all users across the nation could suffer from some kind of inconvenience, regardless of the range of problems within the telecommunications networks. Moreover, considering that high-speed Internet service was designed to send data via a roundabout route in times of trouble, the nationwide network may be down due to decreased speed in the route. LG Dacom, in fact, said that the network had experienced some problems on August 7, just in some of the Metropolitan areas, but that complaints were launched by subscribers in other places such as Busan and Ulsan.

Experts blamed the incidents on poor investment in telecommunications networks. Telecommunications operators have minimized their investments at the request of shareholders who wanted to see their dividends increase. Because the companies have concentrated more on the competition for a share of the market, the quality of the networks has not improved in accordance with the increase in Internet use, according to the experts.

An official at the Korea Communications Commission noted, “It is necessary to resurrect the system of measuring the quality of communications networks and disclose the results to users as a way of encouraging telecommunications operators to invest in the networks.”