The Only Domestic 'PC Communication' Unitel Ends Service After 26 Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] South Korea's only PC communication service, 'Unitel,' will finally close its doors this June.

According to the IT industry on the 6th, Unitel announced its service termination policy on its homepage on the 4th. Unitel stated, "We sincerely thank all the customers who have used Unitel so far," and added, "We deeply regret and apologize for not being able to continue providing the service." The service termination date is June 30.

Unitel was one of the four major PC communication services in South Korea during the 1990s, alongside Cheollian, Hitel, and Nownuri. It started as Samsung SDS's PC communication service in 1996 and spun off as an independent corporation in 2000. It gained popularity after being featured as the PC communication chatroom where the male and female protagonists conversed in the 1997 movie 'Jeopsok' (Contact).

With the spread of high-speed internet in the 2000s, it lost its place to portal sites and, although it belatedly transitioned to a portal site, it struggled to compete with already established large portals.

Unitel stated, "We will do our best to provide sufficient backup time for customer data," and added, "Previously sent and received emails can be backed up and downloaded to a PC."

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