"Telecom 3 Companies' Terms Are 19 Years Old"
KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo Also Agrees on the Need for Improvement
Byun Jae-il, Chairman of the Semiconductor Technology Special Committee of the Democratic Party of Korea, is delivering an opening remark at the Semiconductor Technology Special Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 15th. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] In the era of online and non-face-to-face interactions, there have been calls in the National Assembly for realistic standards for compensation for communication failures.
On the 28th, Byun Jae-il, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, argued that the current compensation standard for communication failures set by the three major telecom companies, which is "3 hours or more," should be updated to "1 hour or more" to reflect reality.
Currently, the three telecom companies' terms and conditions stipulate compensation standards as "if service is not provided continuously for 3 hours or more, or if the monthly cumulative downtime exceeds 6 hours." For high-speed internet, the Ministry of Information and Communication strengthened the standard from 4 hours to 3 hours in 2002 when it introduced the high-speed internet quality assurance system. For mobile communications, the standard was changed from 6 hours to 3 hours in 2001 following a resolution by the Communications Commission, and this has been maintained to date.
Following KT's wired and wireless communication failure on the 25th, calls for improvements to the terms of service increased. In fact, although the entire nation experienced inconvenience due to KT's communication failure lasting 40 to 85 minutes from 11:20 a.m., it does not meet the compensation criteria under the terms and conditions.
Byun Jae-il stated, "In the non-face-to-face era where all services operate on communication infrastructure, even a 5-minute communication failure is a disaster that paralyzes the daily lives of the people," and criticized, "The three telecom companies have been applying standards created during the introduction of 3G for over 19 years into the 5G era, showing a passive attitude toward compensating user damages."
He further argued, "The compensation standard time should be changed from the current 3 hours to 1 hour, and a system should be introduced to automatically reduce fees in the following month without the subscriber's application when a failure occurs. Additionally, procedures for compensation related to indirect damages such as business losses should be clearly stipulated in the terms and conditions."
He added, "In cases of failures caused by the operator's clear gross negligence, strong sanctions such as banning new subscriptions and waiving customer termination penalties should be imposed to prevent recurrence."
KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo also met with Democratic Party lawmakers from the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the same day and told reporters, "The existing compensation-related terms were established a long time ago, and since we now rely on data communication, that part needs to be improved."
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