Korea is known for its rapid Internet speed and wide network. This is because its small territory compared to other countries and the population concentration in large cities made it relatively easy to construct its Internet infrastructure. People who visit Korea are amazed by how you can connect to the Internet anywhere in cities in cafes, public transportation, supermarkets, and schools. In this country, Internet disconnection is not a small thing. But surprisingly, disconnections sometimes happen from various causes, such as mistakes by technicians or companies while repairing network cables and malfunctioning network systems. In October 2021, something similar happened when a major telecom company's nationwide Internet network service ceased for more than an hour during the daytime.

At around 11:00 a.m. on the 25th of October 2021, tens of thousands of people experienced Internet disconnection across the country. At first, many people thought that their devices were having a problem and they were the only ones who were getting errors. Other people thought that this was just a temporary deterioration of their local Internet service. But in fact, all the users who were using Internet network service from KT nationwide were having the same problem, which lasted for 89 minutes. During this time, workers could not proceed with their work since their companies that use KT Internet service were having a massive Internet shutdown. Stores that depend on KT service for their payment system could not handle the customers' payments. Lastly, a countless number of personal users could not get Internet connections through their cell phones. It was overall a massive economic loss and irrevocable damage to all the company’s customers.

Right after it happened, many possible assumptions were made regarding the cause of this catastrophe. A few hours after the incident, KT announced that this could have happened because of a DDoS attack from the outside. But a thorough investigation by a team, formed by the government and led by network experts, revealed that this national disconnection was a result of a single mistake by a KT worker. To elaborate, KT uses different kinds of protocols1 for inner and outer network path configuration. It's because there is a simple distinction with the amount of data that each network path handles. The outer network can handle much more data than the inner network. While replacing a router2 for the enterprise network level, the worker mistakenly omitted an 'exit' command, which led path data for the outer protocols to be transmitted to the inner protocol. An inner protocol normally handles about 10,000 cases of data exchange, but this time, more than ten times the amount of data was transmitted to the inner protocol. This led to a transmission overload. In a moment, this wrong path update was made to all other routers across the country as well.

1A protocol is a standard set of rules that allows electronic devices to communicate with each other.

2A router is a device that connects two or more networks or subnetworks.

Subsequent media reports revealed that this fatal error could have been prevented beforehand. To start with, the KT network control center initially approved the work during the nighttime from 01:00 to 06:00, but the actual work occurred in the late morning, from 10:00 to 11:00. Also, the work was done by the technicians alone, who were from a subcontractor, without any managers from KT who were in charge of it. The fact that they could not notice the simple error from the draft and while examining it also highlights the flaws of the system. Those existing verification processes were simply done manually, and this could naturally lead to errors. Last but not least, there was no system to stop a single disconnection in a region from spreading throughout the nation, which is pretty odd if you consider the size of this company's network system and the number of its users.

KT promised to compensate its users for the halt of their service. However, since this network error happened from 11:16 a.m. to 12:45 a.m., for 89 minutes, it fell short of the company's rule for compensating for more than three consecutive hours of discontinued service. Even so, representatives announced that there would be compensation beyond the company's policy. However, as it turned out, the compensation that was given to users was unreasonably small for replacing their losses. A news report revealed that the amount of credit card use dropped by 26% during the disconnection compared to other days at the same time. However, according to the compensation arrangements which were announced on the 1st of November by KT, the company said there would be a discount on the users' bill in the following month. Personal users got a discount by the amount of internet service fee for 15 hours, and for the business owners the amount for 10 days. This practically means that there was about a ￦1,000 discount for the personal users and a ￦7,500 discount for the market users. This was apparently too little to satisfy the users.

On the 29th of December 2021, the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT announced the 'Measures for Securing the Network Stability'. This was to prevent accidents similar to this KT network error. First, regulations for network companies’ on-site work will be tightened. Work on the communications facilities like installing, replacing, or repairing cables or devices will only be done at the approved time by the approved workers and will be supervised by the center. Also, mock testing will be executed on a nationwide level before putting any technical changes into practice. That is, in order to repair the core networks that cover the entire country, mock testing should be done mandatorily. Moreover, there is a renewed guideline to reform the network structure in order to prevent local network errors from spreading to more extensive networks. Specifically, filtering devices for core networks will be arranged so that the error doesn’t spread on nationwide. And in order to prevent degradation of cables, network companies and authorities will share records of excavation work they respectively collect.

Practical preventive measures have also been arranged. If another wired or wireless communication error occurs, public Internet for emergencies will be available for people to use. People will be able to use public WI-FI as well as commercial WI-FI provided by the three major domestic communication companies. KT agreed to provide 100,000 networks, SKT 90, 000, and LGU+ 80,000. This means users will be able to access the Internet through other companies’ wired networks. For stores, technologies for credit card machines using cell phones’ tethering function will be provided.

As much as fast and wide Internet service brings a lot of pluses to our lives, when it is not working properly, it can affect us seriously in every aspect of our daily lives. The problem is that these incidents still frequently occur in Korea, varying in size and due to some small mistakes or errors. This issue has to be taken seriously by Internet service companies and by the law. Preventable accidents have to be prevented. On the 19th of January 2022, the Korean Fair Trade Commission announced that it will be changing the criteria for the reimbursements for Internet service disconnections, which have stayed the same for the last 11 years. Hopefully, these measures will reinforce the overall network and enable users in Korea to use more stable services in the near future.

Kim MinJi  minjifromseoul@gmail.com

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