SK Telecom's 8,000 stations to detect earthquake
Suh Sung-won, left, head of SK Telecom’s mobile network operation division, poses with Nam Jae-cheol, administrator of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), after signing a business agreement at the KMA’s headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom
By Baek Byung-yeul
SK Telecom (SKT) will install earthquake-detecting sensors at its base stations in 8,000 spots nationwide to provide better earthquake forecasting.
SKT said Thursday it signed a business agreement with the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) to install the detecting sensors at 8,000 locations where base stations are clustered by 2020.
The mobile carrier said it will begin installation on base stations in 300 locations located around earthquake-prone cities such as Pohang and Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province and Ulsan.
SKT said the smartphone-sized seismic sensor can measure the strength and size of an earthquake in real time.
Korea is no longer free from the threat of earthquake, as the country has recently experienced a series of earthquakes which were strong enough to be felt throughout the country. According to KMA data, Korea had 223 earthquakes with magnitudes above 2.0 last year.
SKT also said it is planning to build up a countermeasure early warning system to reduce potential earthquake damage on industrial sites in cooperation with the KMA.
To provide fast notification before an earthquake shakes the ground, SKT will provide a service to connect the KMA's early warning service to large plants and construction sites using its internet of things (IoT) networks.
The company added the early warning system can secure the “golden time” for evacuating workers as swiftly as possible and halt operation of the facilities automatically.
“This business agreement is a representative example of sharing SK Telecom's mobile network infrastructure,” said Suh Sung-won, head of SKT's mobile network operation division. “SKT will keep working so the company's ICT technology can play a role to secure the safety of the public and society.”
The weather agency chief Nam Jae-cheol also said the KMA will keep making efforts “to develop faster and more accurate earthquake early warning systems by expanding cooperation with the private sector.”