KT offers to exempt service fees for 15 hrs in compensation for 1-hr-long breakdown

[Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

KT Corp. will exempt 15 hours of fees for its customers of fixed and wireless network in compensation for the near one-hour-long disruption and breakdown last Monday.

The country’s main fixed-line provider and second largest wireless carrier in a press conference on Monday disclosed a damage package that would cost the company an estimated 35 billion won 40 billion won ($34 million) to compensate for 15 hours, 10 times the maximum 89-minute service crash.

For small merchants whose lunch business had been disrupted from the breakdown in pay machines, service charges will exempted for 10 business days. Those who subscribe price packages for second devices like tablet PCs and smart watches will also be able to receive the credit.

KT said the credit will be automatically applied to the November bill.

[Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

For better compensation process, KT will run an exclusive support team for the next two weeks. A separate taskforce team will also take steps to prevent recurrence. The existing simulation system will be expanded to avoid breakdown from human error, and the automatic control system will be established to monitor and prevent unexpected, unapproved work and process.

“Once again, I would like to express my sincere apologies for causing inconvenience to our service customers. We’ll go all out to restore the customer trust by quickly applying prevention measures,” emphasized Ku Hyeon-mo, CEO of KT.

The hour-long blackout was attributed to a routing blunder, although a full investigation results are yet to come out.

KT shares closed 1.15 percent higher at 30,850 won in Seoul trading on Monday.

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