[2020 National Audit] Park Sung-joong: "Public Wi-Fi Deployment is Foolish"

Park Sung-joong "Huge amount of money spent but only a few people can use it... Isn't this foolishness?"

Representative Park Sung-joong (left) and Minister Choi Ki-young of the Ministry of Science and ICT

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] Assemblyman Park Seong-jung harshly criticized the public Wi-Fi construction project as a waste of taxpayers' money, calling it "ttoljit (crazy act)."

On the 7th, during the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee's audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT, Assemblyman Park Seong-jung (People Power Party) said, "Installing one public Wi-Fi costs more than 6 million won, and it requires an enormous amount of money, but only a few people use it. It's a tremendous waste," adding, "The Ministry of Science and ICT is pouring taxpayers' money into a bottomless pit. This is 'ttolrai' (crazy). I thought it was a Japanese word, but it's a Korean term meaning 'ttoljit' (crazy act)."

Assemblyman Park said, "President Moon Jae-in pledged free Wi-Fi, and the Democratic Party planned to invest 580 billion won by 2022 to build it on buses and schools," adding, "I have never used public Wi-Fi. No matter how much it is the president's or the Democratic Party's pledge, things that need to be fixed should be fixed."

He pointed out that Wi-Fi data traffic accounts for only about 2% of the total wireless data traffic, with 13,000TB out of 640,000TB. He added that the cost of building public Wi-Fi is about 6 million won per unit and it can only be used for six years, making its effectiveness low.

He said, "The share of public Wi-Fi is only 0.1%, and even if increased to about 50,000 units, it would only be 0.4%, so expanding it has no real meaning," and criticized, "There is no need for double investment on what the licensed telecommunications operators have already invested."

In response, Minister Choi Ki-young said, "If public Wi-Fi is widely installed, more people will use it at faster speeds," and added, "Since public Wi-Fi is built in places with heavy foot traffic, I believe it will be sufficiently effective."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.