Content War Among 3 Major Telecoms
Seollal Traffic Volume Down 33% YoY
SK Telecom will offer free video call services from the 11th to the 14th. The photo shows a child making a New Year's bow to their grandmother via a free video call.
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Unlike last year's Lunar New Year, this year maintained the ban on gatherings of five or more people, leading to the emergence of 'online Sebae' using non-face-to-face video calls. The three major mobile carriers also stepped up to support this with free video call services. They are also contributing to promoting a safe Lunar New Year culture by providing free video-on-demand (VOD) services and more.
On the 11th, the government and the three major mobile carriers (SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus) encouraged a non-face-to-face holiday culture for this Lunar New Year. First, they support free video calls to promote virtual homecoming and on-tact Sebae. Anyone with a smartphone capable of video calls can use the service without any charge, including users of the three major carriers as well as budget phone users.
Actual demand for returning home during the Lunar New Year is also observed to have sharply decreased compared to the previous year. According to a special traffic demand survey conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport last month targeting 9,398 households during the Lunar New Year special traffic period (February 10?14), it is expected that a total of 21.92 million people, averaging 4.38 million per day, will travel this year. This is a 32.6% decrease compared to the Lunar New Year holiday period last year. This contrasts with last year’s Lunar New Year, which saw traffic volumes similar to previous years despite the early stages of COVID-19.
The battle for living room TV viewership has also intensified for citizens who gave up returning home and are spending the Lunar New Year holiday at home. LG Uplus has expanded servers to smoothly provide overseas videos such as Google and Netflix, as well as IPTV VOD services. They operate NMS 3.0, which integrates management of eight networks including mobile subscriber network, core network, IPTV network, backbone, optical LAN, hybrid fiber coaxial network (HFC), transmission network, and telephone network, to respond promptly to any failures. Especially, anticipating an increase in video viewing, they have expanded cache server capacity.
Pay TV providers such as cable TV, IPTV, and satellite broadcasting are running various events including content discounts and coupon issuance to allow viewers to watch video-on-demand (VOD) comfortably at home this Lunar New Year, following last Chuseok. SK Broadband, affiliated with SK Telecom, is holding the 'So Happy! Lunar New Year' event and running a customized B TV curation promotion. KT’s Olleh TV is operating the special '2021 Seol~prise!' section for five days until the 14th. Olleh TV’s IPTV service for infants and toddlers, Kids Land, has also prepared a Lunar New Year special section. KT Season is offering free access to its Season Plain, which has over 260,000 VOD titles, for five days.
Gift giveaway events are also abundant. LG Uplus is offering a chance to win a 10,000 KRW VOD coupon to 2,021 customers who purchase VOD worth 10,000 KRW or more on U+tv or U+mobile TV until the 14th. Customers are automatically entered, and winners will be individually notified via text message on the 16th. Additionally, until the end of this month, LG Uplus is conducting visitor events for users of the U+AR and U+VR apps, with prizes such as LG CineBeam projectors and Shinsegae gift certificates awarded by lottery.
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