Network Failures Taint KTFs 3G Growth
By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
KTF's third-generation mobile service is being marred by technical glitches. The company said that its ``Show'' 3G service was paralyzed for more than five hours Tuesday afternoon in the southern Gyeonggi Province and Incheon areas.
It is the second time that KTF has suffered from 3G service interruption. On Aug. 10, the network went down for over two hours in the same area in Gyeonggi Province. At the time, the company gave 3,000 won in compensation to each 3G phone user there.
``There was a sudden increase in call traffic, which resulted in a system overload in the region,'' the company said in a brief press release Tuesday night without further elaborating.
``Show'' is South Korea's first video call service based on a WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) network, often referred to as 3G telecom technology. Video calls were available on previous mobile services, too, but few people used them because of poor picture and voice quality, and high costs.
KTF, a distant second player in the telecom market after market leader SK Telecom has made massive investments in promoting its ``Show'' service since its launch in March, hoping that it can take the lead in the 3G market.
Despite the system malfunctions, the pace of the 3G growth has been accelerating. Earlier this week, KTF said the number of 3G subscribers passed the two million mark - it took four months for the number of ``Show'' users to surpass the one million mark but only three to reach two million.
KTF said some 347,000 people signed up in September alone. Now almost one in six KTF customers are 3G users.
SK Telecom, which also launched a 3G service named ``T Live,'' has around 1.2 million 3G users. The firm too had a similar incident in August, and offered a 4,000-won discount in compensation for the inconvenience.
To lure local users to upgrade their handsets from 2G to 3G, both companies are offering a variety of discount plans. They are granting 100 minutes of free video calls to new users for the first three months of subscription. KTF also has introduced a flat price policy that allows limitless calls between couples.