Consumers left with few options apart from expensive plans
Consumer advocacy groups' efforts to ease the financial burden of phone users by introducing a universal billing system have gone down the drain.
At a consultative policy meeting to discuss how to lower household telecom expenses, all three mobile carriers refused to introduce the simplified billing system. These telecom companies even denied the need to reduce mobile fees.
That put things back to mid-2017 when the newly inaugurated Moon Jae-in government began a tug-of-war with the telecom industry over how to reduce mobile expenses by, for instance, doing away with basic monthly fees.
If the administration turns its back on the unruly sector again, one of President Moon's campaign pledges will go up in smoke.
We are appalled by the industry's allegations that telecom fees in Korea are lower than in foreign countries. The domestic carriers adopt a minimum charge system, in which all three companies provide only 300 megabytes of data at 32,800 won ($30.20) in what appears to be a price cartel.
Their Italian counterparts offer 10 gigabytes at a similar price, and Dutch companies allow subscribers to use 4 gigabytes at a lower rate. With data use becoming the core of telecom service, Korean carriers have designed a billing system so cleverly that it leaves consumers with few other options but to subscribe to expensive plans.
Nothing shows this better than the fact that more than 40 percent of consumers subscribing to data-oriented fee plans pay 60,000 won or more a month.
The government's proposal calls for carriers to agree to 200 minutes of voice and 1 gigabyte of data at 20,000 won a month. This is only half the level of the U.K., where carriers provide 2 gigabytes at a similar rate.
Korean carriers' tenacity reflects their expectations of obtaining more favorable rates in the course of legislation. The government must not allow this to happen by coming up with a more elaborate payment scheme. Consumers also should put more pressure on their representatives.
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