Korea Telecom (KT), the largest telecommunications company in Korea, was established on December 10, 1981 under a "public conversion" plan to separate the telecommunications division from the Ministry of Communications (now the Ministry of Information and Communications) in order to effectively operate the electrical communications business, with the aim of increasing national convenience and public welfare. In the early days of its establishment, KT focused on the supply of telephone facilities in order to achieve mass communication, and by 1993, it had expanded its telephone lines from 4.5 million in 1982 to 20 million, laying the foundation for the early completion of information technology.