"Establishment of Backup and Roaming Systems Between Telecom Operators" Government Measures to Prevent Recurrence of Internet Outages

Ministry of Science and ICT Announces 'Network Stability Assurance Measures'

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] As a follow-up measure to the KT network incident that occurred last October, the government will strengthen communication disaster prevention and response through enhanced central system work control and AI-based work intelligence. Additionally, it will reinforce network survivability capabilities through network structure improvements and increase resilience to network failures by establishing backup systems among telecom operators.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced on the 29th the "Network Stability Assurance Plan" containing these measures. Under the policy goal of implementing a safe network to support the digital transformation, the plan consists of four major tasks: strengthening communication disaster prevention and response, enhancing network survivability capabilities during disasters, improving network failure resilience after disasters, and improving the network stability assurance system.

To prevent failures caused by network errors, the plan includes strengthening systematic control of operations and enhancing intelligence in network safety management. First, it will reinforce the network error prevention and response system of major telecommunications operators. To prevent core network errors affecting the nationwide network, pre-verification using simulation test systems will be expanded to all core network operations. Centralized control of work management will be strengthened to allow only approved operators, equipment, and work hours, and bypass operations will be restricted. Furthermore, the establishment of an anomaly detection system will be considered for rapid and integrated situational awareness and response to communication disasters.

Moreover, the plan calls for the phased expansion and enhanced utilization of network safety management technologies such as AI and SDN. AI-based automatic monitoring will first be applied to high-subscriber services like home internet and IPTV, and SDN will be applied initially to standardized tasks such as customer activation.

Mid- to long-term technology development for network safety management will also be pursued. AI will be developed to automatically predict problems across the entire network and notify control centers for early detection and response to errors. Software-defined networking (SDN) technology will be developed to enable automatic network management. For backbone networks, the development of a "digital twin" resembling the actual communication network will be promoted to enable pre-testing and verification.

Even if network failures occur, the network structure of major telecommunications operators will be improved to maximize service survivability. First, safety devices will be installed between core network layers to prevent errors in some core network equipment from spreading to all equipment. To block errors occurring in regional networks from propagating to other regions, subscriber network routing will be configured as independent autonomous systems or use static routing that does not automatically exchange messages, thereby isolating regions.

To prevent wired network failures from causing wireless network internet failures as in the recent incident, dualization of wired and wireless access routes will be promoted to secure alternative internet access paths usable during disasters beyond the operator’s own wired network.

Preparation for various failure types such as cable cuts and power outages caused by excavation work will also be strengthened. First, a shared database of excavation work information collected by telecom operators will be established to prevent cable cuts caused by excavation. In the mid- to long-term, information-sharing systems with local governments will be enhanced, and legislative supplements to prevent excavation accidents will be reviewed.

Through mutual cooperation systems among telecom operators, the operators’ own resilience will be strengthened, and various backup options will be provided to users to enhance network failure resilience.

To this end, an inter-operator mutual backup system allowing wireless network users to access the internet via other operators’ wired networks during nationwide wired network failures will be gradually expanded starting with essential services. In the event of localized wireless network failures, roaming scale will be increased by 1.5 times so that users can use other operators’ wireless networks with existing devices, enabling response to most communication disasters at the city level.

Additionally, during wired and wireless failures, public and commercial Wi-Fi will be opened upon issuance of the communication disaster crisis alert "Warning," allowing urgent internet use. A unified identifier that anyone can easily recognize will also be separately transmitted.

Various backup services will be supported to protect small business owners. In the short term, wireless communication functions for POS payment devices via tethering to small business owners’ mobile phones will be developed for wired internet failures. In the mid- to long-term, wireless backup rate plans charging fees only when service is provided during disasters will be considered through the development of related technologies such as standard shared terminals.

Finally, institutional improvements to enhance network stability will be pursued. To enable users to respond promptly to network failures, the system will be improved to notify failures immediately via text messages or SNS. Furthermore, to assign responsibility for stable service provision appropriate to the social responsibility of backbone telecommunications operators, institutional grounds will be established for obligations including service stability assurance, preemptive technical and managerial measures, failure notification, and annual reporting on network stability measures.

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