A famous IT YouTuber, ITSub, raised the issue of the slowing down of high-speed internet in his video on April 17. In his video, he claimed, “I subscribed to KT’s 10Gbps internet plan, and when I measured the speed, the actual speed was 100Mbps.” He found out the internet speed was limited to 100Mbps when he checked the modem and the router. ITSub claimed that it was not the first time he faced a speed problem with KT’s 10Gbps internet service. ITSub dialed customer service to protest and requested that the issue not be repeated. However, he received an answer that customers should check and prove the slowdown.
On April 20, KT made clear that the slowdown was not intentional but their mistake. KT announced that the “identification number input error” was the problem. ITSub recently exchanged his internet appliances, and in the process, KT accidentally put in the wrong identification number, limiting the speed of internet to 100Mbps instead of 10Gbps.
However, after this incident, others also claimed to have experienced similar internet speed slowdowns. On Blind, an anonymous social media application for working employees, there were posts saying that the user’s LG U+ 500Mbps plan had a download speed of 59Mbps and an upload speed of 46Mbps. Another post on the online forum dcinside claimed that SK Broadband’s 1Gbps plan only had a speed of 500Mbps. Telecom companies have terms under the “Service Level Agreement” that require compensation if the internet speed does not meet certain standards, and each company has different speed measurement standards. However, users are required to measure the speed of the internet themselves and prove that it does not meet the stated criteria.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said it would look into the terms and conditions of KT’s internet plans and modify it as necessary so that the same problem does not occur. On April 21, the Korea Communication Commission announced that it would review whether KT deliberately slowed down users’ internet speeds. Regardless of whether the incident was intentional or not, telecom companies should focus on quality and service improvement and break away from the mindset that customers need to prove and report the problem first before fixing it.