SEOUL, South Korea-Nearly 83,000 South Korean mobile-phone subscribers have taken advantage of local number portability in that country, which began Jan. 1, although in limited form.
Subscribers to the country’s dominant carrier, SK Telecom, can switch to rival operators KTF or LG Telecom and keep their cell-phone numbers. However, KTF subscriber cannot switch until July and LG Telecom users must wait until next year.
Korea’s telecom regulatory, the Information Ministry, adopted the phased schedule for LNP due to SK Telecom’s dominant position in the market. The operator has more than 50-percent market share.
As of Wednesday, 82,917 SK Telecom subscribers had switched to either KTF or LG Telecom, although the majority had switched to KTF, according to SK Telecom.
