Top 3 Mobile Carriers Improve Emergency Rescue Location Information Quality

KT Shows the Fastest Response Time Among Carriers

The emergency location information services of the three mobile carriers (SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus) have shown improvements compared to the previous year.

On the 28th, the Korea Communications Commission announced the results of the "2024 Emergency Location Information Quality Measurement" conducted on the three mobile carriers and mobile phone devices.

The measurement, conducted from July to November last year, evaluated the promptness and accuracy of location information by temporarily enabling the device's location setting (GPS) and Wi-Fi functions when an emergency occurred, while these functions were initially disabled.

For the base station method, location accuracy improved significantly from 52.3m to 25.0m, and response time decreased from 3.0 seconds to 1.4 seconds. The Wi-Fi method also showed improvements in all indicators: the location compliance rate increased from 96.8% to 98.9%, accuracy improved from 20.1m to 18.7m, and response time shortened from 4.2 seconds to 2.4 seconds. The GPS method saw improvements in location compliance rate (97.7% → 99.0%) and response time (4.6 seconds → 1.7 seconds), but accuracy slightly declined from 11.3m to 12.7m.

By carrier, SKT achieved the highest scores in location compliance rates for GPS and Wi-Fi methods at 99.8% and 99.5%, respectively. In terms of location accuracy, KT led in the base station method (22.3m), while SKT excelled in GPS and Wi-Fi methods with 8.6m and 14.5m, respectively. KT had the fastest response times across all methods.

Meanwhile, foreign devices such as Apple and Xiaomi provided base station location information but did not offer Wi-Fi-based location information because the positioning functions of the three mobile carriers were not installed. However, Xiaomi devices were partially improved to provide GPS information under certain conditions, and Apple devices were confirmed to provide self-calculated location information during emergency calls or up to five minutes after the call ended.