SK 텔레콤이 지난 20일 발생한 음성 통화 및 데이터 통신장애와 관련해 약관 이상의 추가 보상을 시행하겠다고 밝혔다.
SK 텔레콤은 이번 장애로 인해 수발신 장애를 겪은 고객 규모를 최대 560만명 수준으로 추정하고 있으며, 약관에서 정하는 배상 금액(6배)보다 많은 10배를 배상키로 했다.
하 대표는 21일 서울 관악구 보라매 사옥에서 열린 SK텔레콤의 주주총회 후 “약관 이상으로 보상하겠다. 어제와 같은 일이 발생해 주주들과 고객들에게 심려를 끼쳐 죄송하다”고 거듭 사과했다.
지난 20일 오후부터 있었던 SK텔레콤의 통신장애는 6시간 만에 정상화됐다. SK텔레콤은 25분만에 복구를 해결했다고 밝혔지만, 실제 통화 불편은 밤늦게까지 계속됐다. 일부 지역은 21일 새벽까지 통신장애가 이어졌다. 이 기간 일부 이용자들은 전화가 끊기는 현상이나 데이터 송수신이 안 되는 불편함을 겪었다
SK텔레콤 홈페이지에는 이용자들의 항의 및 문의가 폭주하면서 한때 접속이 불가능했다. 특히 문제 발생 뒤 서둘러 사과를 하거나 자초지종을 알리지 않고 사건 5시간이 지난 뒤에야 언론사에 보낸 사과 보도자료를 통해 상황을 알려 비판을 받았다.
SK텔레콤은 전화를 거는 상대의 위치를 찾아주는 HLR(가입자 확인 모듈) 장비에 오류가 발생했기 때문이라고 설명했다.
<관련 영문 기사>
SK Telecom to compensate for glitch
SK Telecom, the nation’s largest telecom operator, saw its network system fail Thursday, affecting calling and text messaging services for thousands of its customers.
The subscribers had trouble making calls or using data services such as email and map and navigation applications for six hours in Seoul and regions in the southern part of Korea, including Gwangju city and South Jeolla Province.
“I apologize to shareholders and customers for yesterday’s incident. We will compensate for the damages with more money than stated in customer clauses,” said SK Telecom CEO Ha Sung-min after its shareholders’ meeting on Friday.
SK Telecom held a press event the same day, saying that “the number of affected customers is expected to be 5.6 million. We will compensate them monetarily with 10 times the phone charges, more than the six times stated in customer clauses.”
Under SK Telecom’s customer clauses, if a network failure lasts for over three hours a day or over six hours in a month and users are not at fault, they can be compensated with six times the phone charges for the duration of the glitch.
“The government will keep an eye on whether SK Telecom takes appropriate measures for the compensation,” said Ko Chang-hyu, an official at the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning’s telecommunications infrastructure policy division.
SK Telecom said the problem was mainly caused by technical glitches in home location registration systems, which find callers’ locations. As the equipment broke down, it was not able to find callers’ base stations.
The company posted an apology on its website at 11 p.m., six hours after the incident took place.
“We make an apology to affected customers for the inconvenience from the service failures, and the modules were restored in 24 minutes,” SK Telecom said.
However the problem lingered until midnight, and the company’s foot-dragging response came under fire.
Due to the delayed response, the company’s website was bombarded with user complaints and inquiries, causing the site to crash temporally. Some taxi drivers, who used SK Telecom’s network for their payment systems, had trouble receiving payments. The association of drivers is now moving to file a class action suit, an industry source said.
This incident has surprised many users as it came only a week after the company had a mobile Internet disconnection due to a problem with its long-term evolution and 3G network equipment last Thursday.
For 20 minutes, subscribers experienced difficulty connecting to the Internet and were not able to use messaging services. Last week, the company said the problem was caused by a malfunction of outside equipment that was connected to its wireless network.
By Shin ji-hye (
shinjh@heraldcorp.com)
