Ghost public Wi-Fi is concentrated in Gyeonggi, Jeonnam, Gwangju, and Seoul... Non-use rate 51.7%

Usage performance for the past 3 months is ‘0’… 51.7% in Gyeonggi, Jeonnam, Gwangju, and Seoul

Lee Joo-hee "We need to prepare a relocation plan starting from areas with a high rate of unused use."

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Park Hyeong-bin = So-called 'ghost public Wi-Fi' with no users or data usage over the past three months appears to be concentrated in specific areas, with 429 locations in Gyeonggi-do alone. The ratio of unused facilities to total facilities also increased by up to three times depending on the region.

According to data submitted by the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee member Lee Joo-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea on the 30th from the Korea Intelligence and Information Society Agency (NIA), among 47,089 public Wi-Fi locations nationwide as of this month, 1,643 (3.5%) facilities had no users or data usage over the past three months.

By region, Gyeonggi-do had the largest number of unused facilities at 429, accounting for 26.1% of all unused facilities.

This was followed by 236 places in Jeonnam and Gwangju (14.4%), 185 places in Seoul (11.3%), 163 places in Gyeongbuk (9.9%), and 127 places in Gyeongnam (7.7%).

There were a total of 850 unused facilities in the top three regions, including Gyeonggi, Jeonnam, Gwangju, and Seoul, and 51.7%, or more than half of the unused facilities nationwide, were concentrated in these regions.

There were clear regional differences in the unused ratio considering the overall facility size.

Gyeonggi and Gyeongnam had the highest rates at 4.8% each, followed by Sejong, Jeonnam, and Gwangju (4.1% each) and Busan (3.9%).

On the other hand, in Daegu, only 20 of the total 1,227 locations were unused and the ratio was only 1.6%, the lowest in the country. Incheon (2.2%) and Seoul (2.4%) also fell below the national average.

The gap between Gyeonggi and Gyeongnam, which had the highest non-use ratio, and Daegu, which had the lowest, was three times that.

In particular, Gyeonggi-do has 19.1% of the nation's public Wi-Fi facilities, but the proportion of unused facilities reaches 26.1%, showing that there are particularly many wasted facilities compared to the total installation size. The proportion of unused facilities (7.7%) was higher than the proportion of all facilities in Gyeongnam Province (5.7%).

NIA announced that it is requesting on-site inspections of unused public Wi-Fi from the three telecommunication companies every month through regular monitoring, and is sharing the inspection results with user organizations such as local governments to recommend actions such as relocation, reinstallation, or termination.

Rep. Lee Joo-hee pointed out, "NIA and the Ministry of Science and Technology must thoroughly manage the performance of transfer and cancellation of public Wi-Fi by region and quickly prepare a relocation plan starting from areas with a high rate of unuse."