Small Business Owners: "KT Compensation Plan Inadequate to an Embarrassing Degree... Additional Measures Needed"

KT Service Disruption Compensation and Recurrence Prevention Measures Press Conference
(Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Ji-eun = Members of civic groups and small business associations are urging thorough compensation and recurrence prevention measures for the KT wired and wireless internet service disruption at a press conference held at the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the morning of the 2nd. From left: Kim Ju-ho, Head of Social Economy Team 1 at People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy; Gyeong Gi-seok, President of the Korea Coin Karaoke Association; Lee Seong-won, Secretary General of the Korea Federation of Small Business Owners and Self-Employed; Han Beom-seok, Head of the Communications Division at the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy's Livelihood Hope Headquarters. 2021.11.2
jieunlee@yna.co.kr
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[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Junhyung] Small business owners have criticized the compensation plan announced by KT regarding the nationwide communication outage that occurred on the 25th of last month.

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (KSMB) stated in a commentary on the 2nd, "The average compensation per person is known to be around 1,000 KRW per line for individuals and companies, and about 7,000 to 8,000 KRW for small business users," adding, "The compensation amount proposed by KT is so insufficient that it is embarrassing to even call it compensation." They continued, "Small business owners experienced severe business losses as KT's wired and wireless, and internet networks went down entirely just before lunchtime, causing them to miss card payments, delivery orders, and even reservation calls," and added, "KT's compensation plan, which offers an amount equivalent to just the cost of one meal, is tantamount to disregarding small business owners."

The KSMB urged KT to establish additional measures. They said, "KT announced it would operate a dedicated support center for small business owners for two weeks, but considering elderly small business owners who have difficulty using the internet, the operation period should be significantly extended," and "They must thoroughly collect detailed reports of the actual damages suffered by small business owners and establish substantial additional countermeasures." They emphasized, "An investigation into the sales decline of small business subscribers during the same time period, as well as the decrease in delivery orders, should be conducted to effectively compensate for business losses."

KT Announces Measures to Prevent Recurrence and Compensation Plan for Internet Outage
(Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Yoon Dong-jin = Seo Chang-seok, Executive Director of the Network Innovation TF, is announcing measures to prevent recurrence at a briefing on wired and wireless internet service outages held at KT headquarters in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, on the morning of the 1st. 2021.11.1 [Joint Coverage]
Photo by Yoon Dong-jin

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The KSMB also called for government and National Assembly measures. They stated, "It is urgent for the government and the National Assembly to prepare measures to prevent repeated KT communication outages," and added, "It is urgent to revise the terms and conditions so that compensation is provided if services are not available for more than three consecutive hours or if the total monthly downtime exceeds six hours."

Furthermore, they said, "Fundamental solutions to prevent communication outages must be devised, including establishing backup communication networks for small business owners and self-employed individuals, and offering reduced usage fees when connecting to backup carriers," and strongly urged, "Measures to facilitate number portability to other carriers for landline phones should also be prepared."

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