ED Warning to wired society
Time to take action to prevent recurrence of blackout
A fire at KT's underground network center in Seoul last weekend showed how vulnerable the nation is to possible communication chaos. It caused an unprecedented communications blackout, inflicting damage to consumers and businesses.
The blackout also tarnished South Korea's reputation as one of the world's most wired countries. The country, an undisputed global powerhouse in information technology (IT), can no longer boast of its state-of-the-art communication infrastructure with one of the fastest internet services in the world.
The fire broke out at a KT ― one of the three top domestic telecom companies ― switching center in Ahyeon-dong, western Seoul, Saturday. It affected 168,000 telephone lines and 220 bundles of fiber optic cables.
It is regrettable to see such a fire paralyze landline and mobile phone services, internet connections, and credit and debit card use. People in the affected districts could not make landline or mobile phone calls and were busy finding payphones. Many stores and restaurants stopped operations as card processing machines went dead, while many citizens formed long lines in front of working ATMs to withdraw cash.
The cause of the blaze is yet to be determined. However, the incident clearly demonstrated how serious the aftermath of such a communication network breakdown is. It also testifies to the poor management of the company's communication infrastructure.
The accident is raising a serious question about the extensively wired Korean society which was plunged into total chaos due to a fire. It is also reigniting a debate about our society's chronic problem ― a lack of fire prevention and safety measures.
First of all, KT should make an all-out effort to restore the system as soon as possible. The government also needs to do everything it can to help the telecom operator. Full recovery is expected to take about a week although 60 percent of mobile and 70 percent of household internet connections were repaired by Sunday morning.
It is needless to say KT should offer due compensation for damage suffered by individual subscribers as well as store and restaurant operators. The amount of compensation should be decided through close consultation with the related authorities.
Both the government and telecommunication companies should learn a lesson from the turmoil and take every necessary measure to prevent a recurrence of this kind of incident.
In particular, the three top telecommunication firms, including SK Telecom and LG U+, are required to come up with concrete plans to help reroute traffic automatically in case such an incident, which should not take place again, does happen.
For their own part, central and local governments should conduct a rigorous inspection of the communication infrastructure in order to better manage it and work out pre-emptive measures against any similar disaster.