New7Wonders phone number causes stir

New7Wonders phone number causes stir

By Lee Hyo-sik Koreans and non-Koreans here and overseas made hundreds of millions of phone calls over the past few years to vote for the country’s southern resort island of Jeju to help it win the designation as one of the New7Wonders of Nature in a worldwide poll. They spent tens of billions of won, thinking that they were making international calls as they had to dial 001 before 1588-7715. To place an international call via KT, Korea’s largest landline phone operator, a person has to first dial 001. But it has been discovered that international calls made by those who wanted Jeju to become a New7Wonders of Nature did not go abroad. KT said Tuesday that the phone calls made by dialing 001-1588-7715 remained in its internal network, meaning that no one outside the country received such calls. It said it set up a server in another country to handle and tally 001-1588-7715 calls. Normally, international calls are transmitted via a telephone firm and connected to the intended numbers overseas. But the calls for the New7Wonders had no foreign recipient, but instead were stored and tallied in KT’s server. KT signed an agreement with the New7Wonders Foundation to ensure phone voting was only possible through its lines. In return, the company promised to pay the Swiss-based organization a certain portion of its revenue in commission. “When the phone voting began on Dec. 29, 2010, the calls were forwarded to a certain number in England. But after April 1, 2011, we were asked by the New7Wonders Foundation to set up our own server overseas to receive the calls,” a KT official said. To set up a server overseas and have a line to direct calls to it, KT increased the charge to 180 won from 144 won. It also cost more to send a text message at 150 won, up from the previous 100 won. The worldwide poll ended on Nov. 11, 2011 and two months later, Jeju was designated one of the New7Wonders of Nature. KT said it changed the way 001-1588-7715 calls were handled at the request of the New7Wonders Foundation. “The foundation told us that its serve was overloaded with too many incoming calls and text messages. It asked us to set up our own server, count the number of calls and provide figures,” the KT official said. The company then said it could have changed the phone number from international to domestic but the National Committee for Jeju New7Wonders of Nature did not want the number to be changed. The committee has become defunct after Jeju’s selection. The Jeju Tourism Organization (JTO), which has taken over the task of promoting the island from the committee, said it had no knowledge of how KT handled phone calls. “All we know was Jeju supporters made international phone calls. The committee was not aware of how KT managed the calls. Neither were we,” a JTO spokesman said. Jeju Special Self-Governing Province also denied any involvement in KT’s handling of phone calls made to vote for Jeju. “It is not our business to know how KT managed 1588-7715 calls. All I can say that they were international calls, not domestic ones,” an official said.