KT Announces '89-Minute Compensation Plan'... Customers Outraged Saying "Only 1000 Won? Turning Away"

Individuals and Businesses Receive 10x Discount on Outage Fees
Small Business Owners Get 10 Days Fee Reduction

On the 25th of last month, a KT wired and wireless internet outage lasting 89 minutes occurred nationwide. The photo shows a mobile and PC screen disconnected from the internet at that time.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] KT has proposed a compensation plan averaging 1,000 KRW per subscriber and 7,000 to 8,000 KRW for small business owners just one week after the network outage incident, but consumers are protesting that the amount is far too small compared to the damage suffered.

Earlier, KT held a briefing on the 'Internet Outage Compensation Plan' at 10 a.m. on the 1st in the large conference room on the basement first floor of the KT Gwanghwamun West Building, announcing that they would waive usage fees for 15 hours for individual and corporate customers and 10 days for small business customers.

KT explained, "According to these standards, subscribers paying around 50,000 KRW will receive compensation of about 1,000 KRW, and small business subscribers using internet products costing 25,000 KRW will receive compensation of about 7,000 to 8,000 KRW."

However, netizens have expressed disappointment with these standards. Some netizens left comments such as, "The most important weekday lunchtime was paralyzed for about 2 hours, and only 1,000 KRW is offered," "How much loss did the store suffer? This is outrageous," "They might as well not compensate," and "Trying to save money but turning consumers away."

On the morning of November 24, 2018, firefighters are extinguishing a fire in the underground communication duct of the KT Ahyeon Building in Chungjeong-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

There are also criticisms that this compensation is even more meager compared to the situation during the KT Ahyeon fire in 2018. At that time, KT paid up to 1.2 million KRW to 12,000 small business owners and waived one month’s usage fee for individual subscribers.

The estimated total compensation amount this time, 35 to 40 billion KRW, is expected to be similar to or slightly below the 40 billion KRW during the Ahyeon fire three years ago. However, since the Ahyeon fire occurred on a weekend and affected parts of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, while this outage happened nationwide around Monday lunchtime, it is difficult to accept that the total compensation amount is similar to that of the incident three years ago.

Meanwhile, Park Hyunjin, Executive Director of KT Network Innovation TF, responded to criticisms that the compensation might be insufficient by saying, "We decided to compensate beyond the terms and conditions and chose a lump-sum compensation plan considering the speed and fairness of compensation," adding, "Considering past and global cases and recent inconveniences, we believe this plan is the best possible compensation."

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