Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
SKT, KT, LG Uplus on edge as gov't urges competitiveness in telecoms market
Park Yun-kyu, left, second vice minister of science and ICT, speaks during a task force meeting on finding measures to promote competition in the telecoms market with experts from academia, state-run agencies and the government in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus ― the three major mobile carriers here ― are on edge, in what is a highly oligopolistic marketplace, as the government is moving to promote competition by ushering in new service operators or urging mobile carriers to come up with more user-friendly mobile data plans, according to the ICT ministry, Monday.
“The mobile operators need to look back on whether the industry is complacent rather than pursuing competition or innovation,” Park Yun-kyu, second vice minister of science and ICT, said during a task force meeting on finding measures to promote competition in the telecom market that was attended by experts from academia, state-run agencies and the government in Seoul.
“We've seen the damage caused by market failures, such as a series of service disconnections, customer information leakage and cybersecurity attacks. If we don't fix the market environment, the telecommunications industry could be culled and the public will have to bear the damage,” the vice minister said.
The task force was launched as a follow-up measure to President Yoon Suk Yeol's Feb. 15 order for measures to increase competition in the telecom market so that users will be able to pay less for mobile data.
During an emergency economic meeting, the president emphasized that the telecom service operators need to offer more user-friendly services as they are service providers with the government's permission.
“Considering the importance of mobile service as an essential good, healthy competition for quality, payment and service should be promoted,” Yoon said. “Special measures should be taken to resolve the oligopoly system in the market and promote competition.”
The vice minister revealed the need for more measures to improve user convenience, such as various kinds of data plans, special data plans for seniors or various ages and strengthening support for a more affordable mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service.
To reduce the burden of soaring utility fees, the ICT ministry will actively cooperate with mobile carriers. First of all, the ministry will enable mobile fee reductions or exemptions for 2.7 million people. Also, the government plans to diversify the mobile service payment system which is currently set to monthly bill payments, by allowing users to choose different payment periods such as quarterly ones.