South Korea’s telecom giant KT Corp. will invest 10 billion won ($8.9 million) to set up air quality monitors at its telephone poles and stations nationwide with an aim to provide more accurate data on air conditions, which would help the public to prepare against threats from worsening air pollutions like fine dust.

KT said on Wednesday that it launched ‘Air Map Korea’ project to collect air quality data by installing monitors at its nationwide infrastructure including 4.5 million telephone poles and 330,000 base stations. The company offered the facilities for state projects and monitoring.

The company will start the project by installing air quality monitors at its 1,500 main telecom service stations in major seven cities including Seoul and test run air quality watch service in the first quarter next year. All air quality data collected through the monitors will go through data analysis process than relayed to the government.

The internet based air quality monitor can measure six different data including fine dust, volatile organic compounds, noise, and humidity level in minutes. Currently, the Korean government is checking fine dust concentration level on a per-hour basis via 300 air quality monitors nationwide. The government’s monitoring system runs on large-sized equipments priced nearly 100 million per unit, but KT can help to reduce the cost by installing small air quality monitors.

The air quality data collected through KT’s new monitoring system is expected to assist state weather-related administration like sending fine dust alarm to the public and operating street sweepers, said KT.

By Kim Gyu-sik

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]