South Korea’s three mobile carriers are activating a special communications system to prepare for a sharp rise in traffic during the Chuseok holiday. They will check base station quality in advance at major transport hubs and tourist sites and respond to communications outages through AI-based control and 24-hour monitoring.

SK Telecom will operate special communications measures from Sept. 23 to 27, linking regional situation rooms with a central comprehensive situation room. It will deploy a total of 3,625 personnel from affiliates including SK Broadband, SK O&S and Home & Service, as well as operations and maintenance partners, to monitor the nationwide network around the clock.

It will also use an AI-based network operations system centered on its Network Management Center. Its self-developed wireless network AI operations system, A-One, analyzes nationwide network traffic and equipment status in real time to detect signs of quality deterioration. It will also use its core network AI integrated control system, Spider, to monitor abnormal signs on an ongoing basis.

SKT expected maximum hourly data usage on Sept. 25, the day of Chuseok, to rise 10.3 percent from normal days. It conducted advance checks in areas where traffic concentrates, including expressways and national highways, family grave sites and tourism and recreation facilities, and expanded capacity at 5G and LTE base stations.

It will provide free video calls from Sept. 24 to 27. It will also run separate situation rooms for major services including T Map, A-dot and PASS. With international roaming users expected to increase by as much as 25 percent from normal days due to more overseas departures, it will strengthen cooperation with overseas operators and security monitoring.

SKT will make early payments to partner companies for the Chuseok holiday. With SK Broadband, it will pay 131.8 billion won early to some 200 partner firms and about 250 distribution networks handling network construction, maintenance and service work. The total amount of early payments ahead of holidays this year, including this payment, is 243.8 billion won.

KT will also designate the period from Sept. 23 through the last day of the Chuseok holiday as a "network intensive management period" and implement special communications measures.

It inspected communications quality at transport hubs such as major expressways, KTX and SRT rail stations, airports and bus terminals, and completed base station capacity optimization. During the holiday, it will intensively monitor 5G and LTE base stations 24 hours a day at major resorts and areas that draw large numbers of family visitors.

It will also strengthen security control to prepare for smishing texts impersonating holiday gifts and cyberattacks. It checked the fastening status of facilities including outdoor base station antennas, communications offices, utility poles and towers to prepare for strong winds and heavy rain. To prepare for emergencies such as power outages, it checked the operating status of emergency power equipment, including mobile generator vehicles and portable generators, and deployed them in advance at major hubs nationwide.

KT will also make early payments totaling 160.7 billion won to small and midsize partner companies together with major group affiliates ahead of the Chuseok holiday. It will also implement the "Clean KT Campaign" to strengthen ethical management practices.

LG Uplus 마련했다. It carried out advance checks of 5G and LTE base stations installed at expressways and rest areas nationwide, KTX and SRT stations, bus terminals and airports, and completed quality measurement and optimization work.

It will analyze call volumes and data usage trends during the holiday and deploy field staff, with an always-on dispatch system, at areas such as major expressway tollgates and rest areas where congestion frequently occurs. At its Magok headquarters in Seoul, it will operate a comprehensive situation room and conduct 24-hour intensive monitoring during the holiday. Using AION, it will respond to real-time traffic changes and expanded cache server capacity to prepare for increased viewing on U+tv and OTT services.

LG Uplus also expects video viewing on U+tv and online video services to increase, and plans to prepare for rising traffic by expanding cache server capacity.

It will provide free video calls from Sept. 24 to 27 to customers, including budget phone subscribers. Prepaid phone users and video calls using mobile data, such as KakaoTalk and FaceTalk, are excluded from the free offer.

LG Uplus will also make early payments of about 25.0 billion won for supplies. The recipients are small and midsize companies that have procurement contracts with LG Uplus and supply materials, construction work and services. Payments will be made entirely in cash.