Ministry of Science and ICT Discusses Outage Response Measures with Major Telecommunications and ICT Service Providers
Internet traffic in March increased by approximately 13% compared to January, reaching an all-time high.

The Ministry of Science and ICT reviewed the current status of increased telecommunications traffic, including the internet, and discussed support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises and universities struggling due to the increase in remote work and cyber lectures.

Recently, due to the spread of COVID-19, internet usage in overseas regions such as Europe has surged, and in some countries, services have gone down or the government has excessively regulated online services. In response, the Ministry of Science and ICT held a meeting to monitor internet traffic and prepare for ICT service disruptions.
The meeting was attended by telecommunications operators as well as major search portals, messengers, and cloud service providers that have established themselves as essential services for the public to obtain information, communicate, and work from home.

Attendees shared traffic trends and disaster preparedness status following the COVID-19 pandemic and explored response measures for potential future failures.

Telecommunications operators said that while internet traffic in March increased by about 13% compared to January (an all-time high) due to the increase in streaming service usage, the peak usage is still only 45 to 60% of the capacity held by operators.

In contrast, while the usage of search portals, messengers, and cloud service providers has increased slightly, this represents the highest usage volume.He said that it was because usage time had expanded overall rather than the price having increased, and that there would be no problem providing the service even if traffic increased.

Jang Seok-young, the Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT, stated, “In Korea, telecommunications infrastructure is well-established, so there are unlikely to be any issues with overall network capacity, but localized and temporary increases in traffic could lead to disruptions.” He added, “We will make thorough preparations to ensure there is no disruption to people’s daily lives and economic activities, and at the same time, we will promptly share the situation with the government to respond in the event of a failure.”

Meanwhile, support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises and universities were also discussed at the meeting. Amazon Web Services plans to provide support to public institutions requiring IT solutions to respond to COVID-19, while KT is offering free internet line expansions and technical support for online lectures to universities using its network.

While providing free video conferencing solutions from Google, Naver, and KT, as well as remote work solutions from SK Broadband, Microsoft Korea, and Naver, initiatives are underway to reduce server costs for small and medium-sized enterprises (NBP) and fully support Kakao Pay payment fees.