Subscribe
E-Paper
 |
| Images show messaging and login failures on mobile instant messenger application Kakao Talk after earthquakes shook the southeastern part of Korea, Monday. Kakao said the errors were caused by an explosive surge in data traffic as well as network delays in the aftermath of the quakes. / Yonhap |
By Yoon Sung-won
Kakao Talk, the most-used mobile messenger service here, temporarily went out of service Monday as the nation was rocked by the strongest earthquake in its history.
According to Kakao, its messenger service suffered errors such as messaging and login failure for more than two hours between 7:45 p.m. and 9:52 p.m. The company said the system failure was caused by an explosive increase in data traffic as the number of messages surged.
"There was a network delay as an aftermath of the earthquake, and added to this the traffic hiked to cause server errors," a Kakao official said.
The company highlighted that the data traffic was even greater than the year-end season.
"After the earthquake, the data traffic, or the number of users, increased higher than the year-end season when the usage of Kakao Talk goes up to extreme levels," the official said. "We do not have such problems ordinarily at the end of the year because we preemptively boost our server capacity by several times. But as (the earthquake) occurred unexpectedly, there was a delay in service." He added that Kakao's server facilities in Korea were not damaged by the earthquake.
As the earthquake occurred in the southeastern part of the nation, the frequency and scale of service failure varied by region. The service was partly normalized in certain regions such as Seoul and Gwangju by around 9 p.m.
Kakao Talk was the only mobile messenger service to malfunction during this time, whereas other services such as LINE and Telegram worked fine. Both LINE and Telegram have their servers outside the country.
"It seems that our service was the most affected by the data traffic surge because Kakao Talk has a far greater number of users here compared to other services," the official said.
Meanwhile, telecom services by the nation's three mobile carriers ― SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus ― were also disrupted after the earthquake as the number of calls surged by an estimated 20 times in North Gyeongsang Province. The telecom companies reported no disruption to services including voice calls and text messaging.
