7.4 million to get free LTE data for compensation

By Yoon Ja-young

When mobile carriers said they would provide “unlimited data” for their customers, it turned out that it wasn’t unlimited. The service becomes notably slower when the customer exceeds the monthly data quota, but mobile carriers tried to hide this information in their advertisements.

Around 7.4 million mobile subscribers will get up to 2GB of LTE data as compensation for the misleading advertising, according to self-corrective measures prepared by the mobile carriers.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and the country’s three mobile carriers ― SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus ― announced the tentative agreement for compensation, Thursday, which will be finalized after 40 days of gathering public opinion.

The carriers propose self-corrective measures to prevent a recurrence of unfair practices, along with compensation for any damages. The regulator may close the case by accepting the proposal.

The compensation measure was prepared after the FTC pointed out that the mobile carriers were misleading customers with exaggerated claims in ads.

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus said they provided “unlimited” data, voice calls and text messages in promotions for some LTE service packages. However, the data was provided as non-LTE when it exceeded the monthly quota. In the case of voice calls or text messages, the subscribers were charged additionally or couldn’t use the services further after exceeding the quota. The carriers totally hid this fact, or almost hid it by using small fonts in dark colors.

As compensation, the three mobile carriers will provide free LTE data coupons to around 7.4 million subscribers of the exaggerated unlimited data packages. Those who have subscribed to the service while the advertisement was running will get 2GB, while those who subscribed later will get 1GB. Most of these advertisements ran for one or two months in 2013 or 2014.

They can also transfer the free data as compensation to other people. The free data provided by the three mobile carriers is estimated to total 130.9 billion won.

Around 25 million people who subscribed to packages promoted as “unlimited voice calls” will be offered up to 60 minutes of free voice calls as compensation.

“When mobile carriers start compensation in June or July, the FTC will regularly examine whether they are doing it properly,” said Jang Duck-jin, head of the consumer policy bureau at the FTC.