Korea Telecom
From ArticleWorld
Korea Telecom (KT) is South Korea’s largest telecommunication company. The telecommunications operator offers a broad range of telephony, business, data, satellite services, mobile telecommunications and Internet-related services. The organization was established in the year 1981 by the South Korean Ministry of Communications (now rechristened as the Ministry of Information and Communications). Korea Telecom was privatized in 2002.
Korea Telecom has a countrywide coverage in South Korea and reaches over 20 million subscribers, availing of the facilities of local, domestic long-distance calling and international long-distance. KT had 6.2 million users subscribing to its broadband services at the end of March 2006. The company is presently focusing on high-speed Internet access, IMT-2000 and satellite broadcasting.
Challenges and competition
Korea Telecom came up with the Centralized Automated Message Accounting (CAMA) project in order to automate the collection and distribution of billing data in an effective and error free manner. The system was intended to carry out billing activity in a timely manner as well. One of the other main aims of the project was to get rid of the magnetic tape collection process because of its slowness, its labor intensiveness and vulnerability to critical data loss in case of damage to tapes during transit.
The company uses a number of network elements like Alcatel, Siemens, Ericsson and AT&T switches. Korea Telecom has had to constantly keep itself abreast of the latest technological developments in order to keep a firm connection between the legacy system and modern trends.
The company has a solution that keeps track of network usage records from a diverse array of switches and brings about data processed that can be used for the purpose of billing and fraud detection. KT also has real-time alarm detection that allows for centralized troubleshooting of problems.
KT’s major competitors in South Korea are Hanaro Telecom, Onse, Dacom and Dreamline.