The Sewol Ferry tragedy and digital technologies

For those who wish to understand the full impact of the tragic sinking of the Sewol Ferry in April of 2014, the half-hour film by Yi Seung-jun is must viewing.  It was published by The New Yorker as a documentary episode in 2019 and has also received wider distribution on YouTube.  Consequently, this post is long overdue.

 The film presents the tragic event as a chronological documentary that is truly heart-wrenching, but necessary viewing for those who want to better understand the Sewol tragedy and its influence on Korea's politics and digital development  Those of you who may have followed earlier posts on this blog (which can be reviewed at this link) will benefit from viewing the film. 

Sewol Ferry finally on land

The Sewol Ferry, which tragically sank in the Spring of 2014 is finally back on land.  The accompanying photo was published by the Korea Joongang Daily.  Hopefully this long, drawn out tragedy will soon come to an end as investigators search the vessel.  Readers of this blog will know the relevance of this story to the development of Korea's digital networks, (see prior posts) especially its public safety LTE networks, scheduled to begin operation in late 2018.

The PS-LTE network: Disaster communications as a business opportunity

The mainstream news media in South Korea are filled with reports these days about the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry one year ago today.  The fact that most of those who lost their lives in that accident were high school students on a field trip to Jeju island only broadened and deepened the nation's anguish.  In all my years living in Korea, I cannot recall an event that affected the whole nation and its entire citizenry so profoundly.  It took months for the economy, politics and social affairs to return to some semblance of normality.
One effect of the the Sewol ferry tragedy was to accelerate this nation's planning for future disaster communications. The disaster exposed the lack of interoperability among responding agencies which hindered rescue efforts.  Last year the Korean government announced plans to build a Public Safety LTE network (PS-LTE) and allocated frequency for it.  As reported by BusinessKorea in January, the national disaster safety communications network would be the first of its kind in the world, and is scheduled for completion by 2017.  The report noted that, according to industry and government sources,"...the national disaster safety communications network project is estimated to be worth 2 trillion won (US$1.85 billion). However, the size of the project is expected to increase to more than 3 trillion won (US$2.8 billion) if 10 year-maintenance costs are included."
The project has drawn considerable interest from both domestic and international companies.  Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent held an event to showcase their PS-LTE technology in January, as did Ericcson-LG, which is collaborating with Nokia Networks and Motorola.  More recently, as reported in The Korea Times, KT announced a partnership with Samsung Electronics in a bid to win the PS-LTE contract.
Other countries, including the U.S., the UK and Canada, have plans to build public safety networks, but Korea's will be the first.  Consequently, regardless of which companies win the contract, this country will serve as the world's test bed for such networks, offering new business opportunities both here and abroad.

87 Mobile phones recovered from Sewol Ferry

The Chosun Ilbo English edition carried an article today entitled "Search for Ferry Victims Nearly Complete."  The last sentence of the article struck me as the most interesting and potentially most important for victims of the tragedy and their families.  It read, "Of 87 mobile phones retrieved from the wreck so far, 15 have been sent to a private company to retrieve text messages and other data that can shed light on the tragedy."

Disaster at sea in the information age

The tragic sinking of the ferry Sewol in mid April and the heartbreaking loss of so many high school students who were onboard has gripped South Korea and also the entire world.  It is beyond words to describe, especially in a short blog post.  I would simply note that the entire tragedy is profoundly conditioned by this countries advanced digital broadband networks.  Already, the public here and the whole world has gained insight into what occurred as the ferry sank through videos recorded on smartphones, which are universally used by high school students these days.  The loss of young people, especially students, strikes a universal chord all around the world, but most especially in this nation which places such a high value on the education of its youth.