A system failure affecting customers who applied to move their phone numbers from KT to other carriers has continued for a second day, prolonging disruption for users.

Industry officials said on Tuesday that multiple system errors occurred in processing number porting from KT to SK Telecom and LG Uplus after activations began at 10 a.m. A similar error occurred a day earlier, delaying same-day activations.

The Korea Telecommunications Operators Association (KTOA) took steps around 10:30 a.m. to temporarily skip the prior consent procedure for number-porting customers to minimise delays.

Customers usually go through a text message authentication process to confirm their intent to switch providers. The association is temporarily simplifying the procedure until the delays are resolved.

Some have raised the possibility that KT deliberately caused the system failure, but KT dismissed it, saying, "It is not a problem caused by any particular company in the system, and there is no way for us to step in and resolve it."

A KTOA official explained, "We believe the failure occurred because more number-porting applications than usual came in."

The cumulative number of subscribers who left KT over the six days through Jan. 5 was tallied at 79,055. With activations from Sunday, when computer systems were not operating, reflected in the figure, the daily total hit a peak of 26,394 cases on Monday.

Separately, despite a waiver of cancellation fees, some subscribers with large fees have been unable to switch to budget mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

This was due to MVNOs' refund systems restricting number porting until high cancellation fees are reimbursed. KT said it took steps to allow switches to MVNOs by paying the fees in advance.

[Yonhap]