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| Technicians of SK Telecom check network quality at an airport, Sunday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom |
By Baek Byung-yeul
With mobile data use expected to peak during the Seollal, or Lunar New Year holiday, mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus are gearing up to offer "seamless" mobile services, company officials said Sunday.
They said the holiday period which will run from Friday to Monday will be data-heavy days as people travel long distances to visit their relatives in hometowns, and places such as shopping malls, train stations and airports will be highly crowded.
To help their customers avoid "data traffic jams," the mobile carriers said they will expand their network capacity on highways, at airports and at bus terminals and deploy additional technicians to promptly respond to emergencies.
SK Telecom said the amount of data use per day during the holiday period is expected to increase by 24 percent as more people will use games, video streaming and navigation apps. In response the company will run a situation room and expand network capacity in 750 busy areas such as highways and airports nationwide.
LG Uplus will also run an emergency response center at its office in Magok, western Seoul during the holiday.
The company has completed inspections of 4G and 5G base stations installed at highway rest areas, SRT and KTX train stations and bus terminals throughout the country.
"To respond to possible data traffic jams, LG Uplus checked out base stations for 4G and 5G networks and will run an emergency situation room. We will also increase the number of technicians for highly-populated areas such as airports," the company said.
KT designated 970 places including highways, department stores, bus terminals, airports, train stations and other busy areas in the country as data quality management zones.
