By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
When Shin Man-jae tried to send a message to his girlfriend Wednesday evening with his Samsung phone, it showed a strange message: ``Unable to identify location. Ask network controller.'' It took a while for him to find out it was SK Telecom's faulty network that had paralyzed his phone for three hours.
``At first, I thought the phone was malfunctioning, so I borrowed someone else's phone but it didn't work either.'' The 30-year-old, who lives in southern Seoul, complained that the incident almost ruined his date.
SK Telecom said that its network for WCDMA (3G) phones stopped working for about 20 minutes in central and southern Seoul on Wednesday evening. Even after it was fixed, the disruption extended for some time as the switchboard was overwhelmed by the sudden burst of calls from startled customers, the company said.
It is not clear what caused the havoc, SK says. ``It happened so suddenly, so it will take some time to identify the problem,'' a company spokesman said.
It was not the first time that the WCDMA network was marred by technical glitches, which caused outcries from customers and consumer groups. SK Telecom and KTF, the two WCDMA operators in Korea, each have had several interruptions in the so-called third-generation (3G) service since last year. In some cases they cited overflow at exchanges, and sometimes mentioned human error.
``Recently we have had troubles in some regions while expanding our network capacity. Lack of experience in dealing with new equipment is believed to be the main cause behind the incidents,'' said Cho Hwa-joon, CFO of KTF, during a conference call with investors on Friday. ``There are more expansions to come, so we have set up a special unit to cope with such problems.''
KTF and SK Telecom launched their respective 3G services last year, which use WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) handsets. These services have faster data transmission, enabling users to use functions such as video calls and mobile Internet. As such multimedia services have become a new profit source for the mobile operators, they are encouraging consumers to switch their phones to 3G by giving handsome subsidies.
Despite repeated pledges to fix problems, problems such as Wednesday's have continued. Korean phone users, who are accustomed to high quality mobile services, have often demanded compensation for such malfunctions. On Web sites, some users are even threatening to file class action suits against the companies.
SK Telecom said it will give 5,060 won ($5) to 3G users who contact its call center whether or not they have actually suffered from the incident. Many phone users are taking it as a bonus. But for some actual victims, such as Shin, the compensation is far from adequate.
``I wasted three hours because of this. I think three hours is worth much more than that for me,'' he said. ``At least they should have notified customers when the service went back on.''