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| Elementary students view educational content on their IPTV. Telecom companies will provide unlimited data for students, parents and teachers when accessing educational content amid COVID-19. Courtesy of SK Broadband |
By Kim Hyun-bin
The country's leading mobile carriers and technology companies have come out with emergency tech-support measures for schools and families as unprecedented online classes begin April 9 at elementary through high schools around the nation.
The new school year here usually begins in March, but the country postponed it three times, pushing it back by five weeks amid fears that schools could become vulnerable to cluster infections of COVID-19.
SK Broadband (SKB), KT and LG Uplus will provide their networks free of charge for teachers, students and parents when viewing educational content while Samsung, LG Electronics and the government will provide some 63,000 units of smart devices such as tablets to students from low-income families.
The move comes after the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) asked domestic tech companies for support as the government is not 100 percent capable of establishing remote-education.
All data usage will be exempted when users visit education websites such as EBS. Since March 16, telecom companies have been exempting data usage for several education websites including Edunet, Science All, Entry and CareerNet. The latest supportive measures allow all students, teachers and parents to be allowed unlimited data when viewing education content on their smartphones through the end of next month.
The three telecom IPTV services will provide EBS educational materials in real-time and also establish broadcast channels to accommodate EBS' first to 12th grade content. Relevant government offices and agencies are reviewing whether to expand the EBS content to be aired on cable and satellite TV services.
Some telecom companies have also been aiding universities as many have turned to online lectures.
"We will provide Uplus' Contents Delivery Network (CDN) free of charge to universities for six months if they apply for the services in April, but we plan to expand the services to elementary, middle and high schools," an LG official said. LG Uplus CDN is a transmission service that allows the lecture videos to be sent to students.
SKB have provided free bandwidth upgrades to 22 universities that are using their internet services to prevent server overload.
"To help out the universities that have been conducting online lectures, we have upgraded their internet bandwidth so that students will have no difficulty studying regardless of where they are," an SKB official said.
Samsung and LG Electronics agreed to provide students in low-income families tablets of their own. Samsung allocated 30,000 Galaxy Tab As, while LG Electronics will give 6,000 G Pad 3s.
The three telecom companies will also set up internet lines for low-income families with city and provincial governments paying the bills at a cost of 19,250 won per household per month.
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