KT creates plans to cut phone bills

KT announced yesterday that it is introducing several benefits to help its subscribers reduce their phone bill.

According to the company, it will launch a new app next month on which family members on the same KT plan can exchange data and membership points freely. If one customer has leftover data or membership points at the end of the month, his or her family members subscribed to the same plan can use those data and membership points.

The unused data will be transferred over to the following month to ease the financial burden of data use.

KT will also provide its subscribers with better data access at major outdoor venues, speeding up Internet access and downloads starting next month.

It said by the end of this year it will expand its GiGA WiFi service to include Caffe Bene and Twosome Place in addition to its current services at Starbucks, Mister Pizza, Outback, Vips, Kyobo Bookstore and the movie theater CGV.

GiGA WiFi is an Internet service that KT commercialized in March 2013 and is at least three times faster than regular Wi-Fi. It can also handle being simultaneously accessed by 500 people, unlike regular Wi-Fi, which will drop in quality if more than 30 people are logged on to a network at the same time. KT’s high-speed Internet and data service is provided at venues that feature the GiGA WiFi sticker.

That same GiGA WiFi service will also become available next month at major bus stops for people traveling between Seoul and Gyeonggi.

KT said it is also discounting its WiBro Hybrid Egg, which combines the strength of wideband LTE and WiBro. The product connects the mobile device to affordable WiBro services, but in areas that do not provide WiBro, the device connects to wideband LTE.

KT offers a WiBro monthly service for 15,000 won ($14.22), in which the subscriber gets 10 gigabytes of data, and for 22,000 won the subscriber can use 20 gigabytes. Compared to KT’s Data Plus plan, which only provides LTE, the WiBro service is 88 percent cheaper.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]