South Korea fines mobile carriers $25 mln for exaggerating 5G network speed

KT

17/08/2023 08:00

By Heekyong Yang
       SEOUL, Aug 17 (Reuters) - South Korea's antitrust
regulator said it would impose a total of 33.6 billion won
($25.06 million) in fines on three domestic mobile carriers for
exaggerating their 5G network speeds. 
    The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that the three
South Korean teleco firms, including SK Telecom Co Ltd
 017670.KS , KT Corp  030200.KS  and LG Uplus Corp  032640.KS ,
had exaggerated their 5G network speeds and unfairly advertised
that they were the fastest relative to their competitors.
    "The three teleco companies advertised that consumers could
use target 5G network speeds, which cannot be achieved in
real-life environment ... companies advertised that their 5G
network speed was faster than competitors without evidence," the
KFTC said in a statement. 
    The KFTC added that it hopes this measure will serve as an
opportunity for the three companies to step away from overheated
competition using unfair advertisements.  
    SK Telecom and KT Corp declined to comment. A spokesperson
at LG Uplus said the company is reviewing the sanctions. 
    A KFTC official said that the size of the penalty for each
company would be different, and that the amounts would be made
public on Thursday.
    There were 30.76 million 5G network users in South Korea in
June, accounting for about 38% of the total 80.23 million mobile
subscriptions in the country, according to the data from the
Ministry of Science and ICT.
        

($1 = 1,340.9700 won)

 (Reporting by Heekyong Yang. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
 ((Heekyong.Yang@thomsonreuters.com;))