As the government decides to conduct an evaluation of the competition for telecommunication service charges, the three mobile telecommunications companies are expected to reorganize their 5G plans.
Next month will mark the 2nd year of 5G commercial service launch. In line with this, the government is going to see if mobile carriers are actually competing for service fees.
This is because the evaluation of the telecommunications business competition according to the Telecommunications Business Act is used as an important measure in determining the future telecommunications market policy direction, and has a large purpose of providing information to consumers on the market competition situation.
On the 17th, the Ministry of Science, ICT and ICT announced that it will announce the results and user considerations at the end of the year or early next year after conducting a pilot investigation on the competition for telecommunication service charges while notifying SK Telecom’s repair of the 5G terms and conditions.
Promoting the evaluation of the competitive situation of rates is a follow-up measure following the introduction of the reservation system. It is explained that it is necessary to evaluate the competition situation for communication charges, as the communication rate authorization system, which has been maintained for about 30 years, was abolished and a reservation report system was introduced to stimulate competition.
■ How will the results of the rate competition assessment come out?
With the implementation of the competition situation assessment, the 5G plan will focus on widening user choices.
5G mobile communication, which started commercial service in April 2019, has been criticized for lack of options for mid-to-low price plans along with complaints about network quality at the beginning of network construction.
For example, there have been many complaints from consumers that it was difficult to choose a plan according to the amount of data used, except for 5G service, which requires a subscription to a plan of 55,000 won or more per month or unlimited data for some high-priced plans.
Regarding the low-cost 5G plan section, the three mobile telecommunications companies have been partially resolved by offering online-only uncontracted rates. For example, SK Telecom’s Untact Plan consists of a fee section of 30,000 won per month for 10 GB of data.
In addition, SK Telecom’s 9GB per month and unlimited data plans on the same day, from the 200GB per month plan, to 10GB, 110GB, and 250GB, have also expanded user options.
Without such a new rate system, the results of the government’s evaluation of the competition situation could come out as a market with fixed competition.
■ Concerns about new mobile carrier plans become inevitable
Competitors KT and LG U+ are not in a position to give much meaning to SK Telecom’s new plan, saying they already have a plan that provides 110GB and 150GB of monthly data.
Accordingly, it is a policy that a corresponding rate plan will not be released immediately.
Nevertheless, it is highly likely that a new rate plan will be formed while examining the trend of subscribers’ rate plan selection according to the new rate plan, in conjunction with the evaluation of the competitive situation.
First of all, the average monthly traffic of 5G subscribers has recently been around 25GB, but unlike the average, actual users’ data use deviation is large. In addition, a group of subscribers with a significant increase in data usage is being formed.
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LTE, which is still used by more than 50 million people in the mobile communication market, is the flagship service, but when the number of 5G subscribers increases to 20 million at the end of the year, it is expected that it will be inevitable to configure a plan with more options than the currently configured 5G plan.
An official in the telecommunications industry said, “There are some concerns about configuring a 5G plan that can provide high value-added services, but it is true that there are concerns about the plan for LTE subscribers to switch to 5G.” Even if there is no competition for this, if various and intuitive schemes are established, new products will be created to attract subscribers.”