KT Communication Outage: President Kang Guk-hyun Summoned as Witness to National Assembly Science and ICT Committee

Witness Adoption at the National Assembly Science and ICT Committee Full Meeting on the 9th
Seo Chang-seok, Head of Network Innovation TF, Also Summoned
Specific Facts and Night Work Status
Compensation for Damages and Measures to Prevent Recurrence Expected to Be Addressed

Kang Guk-hyun, President of KT Customer Division, has been selected as a witness for an urgent inquiry regarding the nationwide KT wired and wireless internet outage at the full meeting of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the 9th. The photo shows KT executives, including Seo Chang-seok, Head of KT Network Innovation TF (Executive Vice President), bowing their heads in apology at a KT press conference on the 1st. Photo by KT

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Kang Guk-hyun, President of KT Customer Division, has been selected as a witness for an emergency inquiry regarding the nationwide KT wired and wireless internet outage at the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee plenary session on the 9th. Since KT stated that "the primary responsibility lies with the partner company," the discussion is expected to mainly focus on verifying specific facts and the scale of compensation for general customers and small business owners affected.

According to the National Assembly and telecommunications industry on the 8th, the Science and Technology Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee (STIBC) of the National Assembly, through bipartisan agreement, selected President Kang Guk-hyun and Network Innovation TF Head (Executive Director) Seo Chang-seok as witnesses for the plenary session on the 9th. President Kang and Executive Director Seo were chosen as they are in charge of managing the technical aspects of the KT communication outage incident and are thus the relevant subjects for inquiry.

The plenary session is expected to mainly address specific facts about KT, the status of nighttime work, compensation measures for affected customers and small business owners, and measures to prevent recurrence of the incident. Since there will also be a report on institutional improvement measures from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Communications Commission, which are the competent authorities, questions directed at these ministries are also anticipated.

Previously, Lee Won-wook, chairman of the National Assembly STIBC, and Jo Seung-rae, the ruling party secretary, who visited KT Hyehwa Tower in Jongno-gu, Seoul, stated that they would examine the issue at the standing committee level. Chairman Lee said, "If necessary, we will convene the standing committee, receive a work report, and listen to recurrence prevention measures." Representative Jo also said, "If necessary, KT can be summoned when the standing committee related to the budget bill is held."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The KT network outage incident that occurred on the 25th of last month began around 11:16 a.m. and lasted between 40 to 89 minutes nationwide. During a router replacement work at the KT Busan office, a worker input an incorrect configuration command, which subsequently caused routing errors leading to a nationwide internet network outage. Following an increase in DNS traffic, the network outage occurred, and KT's recovery measures were completed around 12:45 p.m.

KT cited the causes of the internet outage as follows: ▲ the work that should have been conducted at night was performed during the day when no KT staff were present ▲ failure to detect command omissions caused by partner company errors during the pre-verification stage ▲ incorrect routing information spreading nationwide through the edge network. Executive Director Seo Chang-seok emphasized, "When applying new network work, the partner company is contractually required to bring a revised standard operating procedure. The primary fault lies with the partner company."

KT's compensation standard is set at 890 minutes (15 hours), which is 10 times the longest outage duration of 89 minutes. The average compensation amount for individual customers is expected to be around 1,000 KRW. Small business owners using internet and IP-based phone services will be compensated based on 10 days of the respective service fees. The average compensation per individual is estimated to be between 7,000 and 8,000 KRW. The total compensation scale is estimated to reach between 35 billion and 40 billion KRW.

Meanwhile, the plenary session will also discuss agenda items such as the adoption of the personnel hearing plan for KBS President nominee Kim Ui-chul, the 2022 budget bill, and the fund operation plan.

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