[Summary] KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo Officially Apologizes "Victim Reporting Center to Be Established Next Week"

On the morning of the 28th at KT Hyehwa Tower
Meeting with Democratic Party members of the National Assembly's Science and ICT Committee
"We will prepare a compensation plan that exceeds the '3-hour continuous' damage compensation terms"
Measures to prevent recurrence... also promoting revision of terms

KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo officially apologized on the 28th regarding the recent KT wired and wireless internet outage and stated, "Regardless of the 3-hour policy, we will actively prepare compensation measures."

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo officially apologized on the 28th for the recent KT wired and wireless internet outage and stated, "Regardless of the 3-hour clause, we will actively prepare compensation measures."

CEO Koo made these remarks after holding a meeting with Democratic Party members of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee at KT Hyehwa Tower in Jongno-gu, Seoul, that morning.

Earlier, on the 25th from 11:20 a.m., errors occurred nationwide in KT's wired and wireless internet networks for 40 to 85 minutes, paralyzing all communication networks including phone and internet. KT initially suspected a "large-scale DDoS attack" as the cause but corrected it to a "routing (network path setting) error" just over two hours later.

According to KT's terms of service, customers subscribed to mobile phone, high-speed internet, IPTV, and other services must be compensated if they cannot receive service for more than 3 consecutive hours without their own fault. However, this incident officially ended in about 1 hour and 25 minutes. It was also pointed out that it is not easy for self-employed individuals and others to prove a causal relationship for direct damages.

Although CEO Koo Hyun-mo expressed his intention to prepare compensation plans personally, the internal board resolution process at KT remains. CEO Koo said, "The specific compensation plan is under discussion, and I will inform you again," adding, "Since this is compensation beyond the terms, it must go through a board resolution, but the timing will be as soon as possible."

Accepting the National Assembly Science and ICT Committee members' suggestions, KT plans to operate a victim reporting center as early as next week. CEO Koo said, "We have experience operating a victim reporting center in the past, so we can set it up quickly around next week," and added, "We may also trace back calls from the call center and proactively contact customers first."

From the left, Assemblyman Jo Seung-rae, the ruling party secretary of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, and Lee Won-wook, the chairman of the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee.

According to KT, the outage occurred during network enhancement work at a base station in the Busan area. Although network-related work is generally conducted at night rather than during peak daytime hours when many users are active, the work was carried out around 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., raising questions.

CEO Koo Hyun-mo said, "Originally, the work was approved for nighttime, but the worker conducted it during the day," adding, "I take responsibility and will prepare measures to physically prevent this from happening."

KT plans to operate a testbed to conduct virtual experiments before applying them in reality to prevent recurrence. They also accepted criticism that the 3-hour continuous service interruption clause does not fit reality and plan to revise it.

Meanwhile, the meeting was attended by Lee Won-wook, chairman of the Science and ICT Committee, ruling party whip Cho Seung-rae, Cho Kyung-sik, 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, and Kim Hyun, Vice Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission.

Chairman Lee Won-wook said, "We discussed how to establish measures to prevent damage," emphasizing, "KT itself clearly stated that this accident was caused by human error."

He added, "KT will officially make a statement after internal procedures," and "The National Assembly decided to review the matter based on the Ministry of Science and ICT's investigation results and reports after discussions with KT."

The Ministry of Science and ICT, the competent authority, plans to announce detailed investigation results as early as the afternoon of the 29th through a briefing.