Interior ministry to show Swedish, Finnish officials Korea's disaster network

The interior ministry said Friday it will take foreign public-safety communications officials on a field tour of the Seoul operations center for South Korea's disaster and safety communications network, sharing the country's experience of running a single nationwide system.

Officials from governments and institutions in Sweden, Finland and India are among those joining the visit. They are in Korea for the Global Public Safety Conference, a public-safety communications forum held Thursday at Convensia in Songdo, Incheon, which drew about 100 domestic and foreign public-safety communications officials.

At the operations center, the visitors will examine the network's integrated operating and management system and its main functions, and will be briefed on how it has been used at disaster sites and on the operating experience accumulated since it was launched.

The network is a single nationwide system used jointly by disaster-related agencies including the police, fire services and local governments. Korea opened the world's first nationwide fourth-generation LTE-based network for the purpose in 2021, and it serves as the communications channel for rapid information-sharing and joint response between agencies when a disaster strikes.

At Thursday's conference, the ministry presented Korea's progress in building and running the network and its plans for further development, exchanging policy and technology trends with the foreign participants.

"This visit to the operations center is an occasion for foreign officials to see for themselves the operating system of our disaster and safety communications network and cases of its use at disaster sites," Park Hyung-bae, head of the ministry's safety prevention policy office, said. He added that the ministry will continue to share its experience of building and operating the nationwide network and use it to expand international exchange and cooperation in public-safety communications.