Smooth Year-End and New Year... Top 3 Telecom Companies Launch Intensive Quality Management

As traffic is expected to increase during the year-end and New Year holidays and Christmas, the three major telecommunications companies are launching focused quality management efforts to provide stable services.

SKT announced on the 21st that it will designate the three-day period from December 30 to January 1 as a special communication countermeasure period and operate a special communication countermeasure situation room.

SK Telecom and SK ONES employees checking the network status around Bosingak, where the bell-ringing event will be held.
[Photo by SKT]

During this period, SKT will deploy approximately 1,000 specialized personnel from subsidiaries, affiliates, and partners nationwide to monitor communication services 24 hours a day. The total number of year-end and New Year holiday staff from SKT, SK Broadband, SK O&S, Home & Service, and other affiliates will reach about 3,000.

SKT has expanded the capacity of 5G and LTE base stations nationwide, focusing on areas where mobile communication traffic is expected to increase, such as bell-ringing ceremonies, New Year events, sunrise viewing spots, train stations, bus terminals, major tourist attractions, accommodations, and other crowded areas.

SKT predicts that nationwide data usage will peak on December 31, increasing by about 7% compared to normal days. To prepare for this, pre-quality inspections and service optimization work have been completed. Additionally, SKT has anticipated a surge in traffic from SNS and message transmissions for New Year greetings at the moment January 1 begins and has prepared countermeasures accordingly.

SKT also expects traffic to increase during this year’s Christmas season (December 23?25) in busy areas such as Gwanghwamun Square and major festivals. It plans to establish separate communication countermeasures by region to ensure thorough communication quality management. Utilizing the wireless network quality management AI solution A-STAR (Access-Infra Service for Targeting & Action Recommendation), SKT will conduct seamless real-time network status monitoring during the year-end, New Year, and Christmas seasons.

Sung Jin-soo, Vice President in charge of SKT Infrastructure Service CT, stated, “We plan to ensure stable service operation so that customers can use communication services without inconvenience during this year-end, New Year, and Christmas period.”

A KT network expert is inspecting network quality at a base station near a department store in Yeouido, Seoul.
[Photo by KT]

KT announced that it will operate a ‘Network Intensive Management System’ from today until January 2 next year. During the period when the network intensive management system is in place, about 1,100 KT network experts will monitor communication services 24 hours a day across various fields and will be deployed for emergency recovery in case of any incidents.

KT has completed the expansion of communication base stations and pre-service quality inspections at more than 200 locations nationwide, including department stores and busy districts expected to attract many customers during Christmas, as well as famous bell-ringing ceremonies like Bosingak and sunrise viewing spots traditionally crowded during the year-end and New Year holidays.

Furthermore, KT plans to strengthen preemptive blocking and real-time monitoring to prevent damage to customers from cyberattacks such as smishing texts disguised as ‘gift deliveries’ and ‘New Year greetings’ targeting the Christmas and holiday periods.

Oh Taek-gyun, Executive Director of KT Network Operations Headquarters, said, “This year as well, large crowds are expected at famous spots due to Christmas events and year-end and New Year’s Eve and sunrise festivals. KT will do its utmost to provide stable communication services so that many customers can enjoy Christmas and the year-end holidays happily and safely.”

An LG Uplus employee is performing network optimization work.
[Photo by LG Uplus]

LG Uplus has entered an emergency operation system for special network communication, completing preparations so that customers can smoothly use communication services such as data and voice. In addition, it has opened a comprehensive situation room at its Magok office in Seoul and will begin 24-hour intensive monitoring.

In particular, LG Uplus has analyzed the performance of network equipment in advance and completed network optimization work, including antenna adjustments, focusing on busy areas and sunrise and sunset viewing spots where many customers are expected to gather.

Moreover, for large-scale bell-ringing ceremonies and nationwide sunrise event areas expected to attract large crowds, LG Uplus will support mobile base stations to alleviate network overload concerns and has deployed on-site personnel at key locations to be ready for immediate dispatch.