SK Telecom moves into the pest control business

Whilst the mobile might not yet be the indispensable personal assistant that will do everything from unlock your car door to set the washing machine spin cycle, lucky users in South Korea are preparing to use their handsets to repel mosquitoes. From Monday, SK Telecom customers will be able to download a phone tone from the cellco’s website which, it claims, is capable of clearing any of the pesky insects within a one metre radius. But there is a downside; the operator admits that using the tone - which is barely audible to the human ear - will severely drain a handset’s battery.