SK Telecom and KT Jointly Promote Kids’ Safety Services

The “U-Safety Notification Service” rolled out in August locates the users and notifies their parents through text messages when the kids with the 3G-based dedicated devices with safety features go into or come out from certain places. (image: KT)

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – For the safety of kids, SK Telecom and KT teamed up with the education ministry to expand their joint kids’ safety service “U-Safety Notification Service.”

The “U-Safety Notification Service” released in August, can locate the users’ whereabouts and alert their parents through text messages when the kids with the 3G-based devices with safety features go into or come out from certain designated places.

The upgrade service of government’s pilot “U-Safety Service” from 2012 to 2013 can call the parents or police with its urgent call feature when emergency situation occurs. It also offers 30 minutes of phone calls and 250 text messages a month.

To pinpoint accurate spots of the users’ going around, SK Telecom employs core strengths offered by GPS, Wi-Fi and Cell. To enhance the accuracy, the largest mobile carrier in Korea collected the Wi-Fi information of all the elementary schools in 84 cities across the nation and installed position determination equipment at the according schools.

Along with SK Telecom, KT also set up a database of Wi-Fi locations installed in more than 12 million places to collect the accurate positions of the users. With the efforts, it can locate the accurate position even when the kids are inside buildings.

In order to increase portability for the kids, they reduced the size of the handset for little kids to grab in one hand and put it into their pockets and added water-proof function.

Besides, they strengthened its function linking to the police in an urgent situation. Users who applied for One-Touch SOS Service to the police can get police mobilization service in the situation by just calling the police.

The U-Safety Notification Service can be offered at 8,800 won (US$8.65) a month when the users subscribe to the service at schools with a three-year contract.

By John Choi (johnchoi@koreabizwire.com)