Wholesale Price Reduction of Budget Phones Expected to Be Completed Within the Year

Ministry of Science and ICT Announces Next Year's Information and Communications Promotion Implementation Plan

The reduction of wholesale prices that budget phone operators pay to the three major mobile carriers for using their networks is expected to be completed within this year.

On the 18th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced the '2025 Information and Communication Promotion and Convergence Activation Implementation Plan' at the 17th Information and Communication Strategy Committee meeting.

The plan includes measures to encourage the reduction of wholesale prices to secure the competitiveness of budget phone services. This follows the amendment of the Telecommunications Business Act in December last year, which established the basis for calculating wholesale prices.

The Ministry of Science and ICT has recently been in discussions with SK Telecom, the wholesale service provider obligated to offer wholesale services, to reduce the budget phone wholesale prices, but the process has not yet been finalized.

The previous wholesale price reduction took place in December 2022, lowering the rate to 6.85 KRW per minute, a 14.6% decrease compared to the previous year, and data prices were reduced to 129 KRW per 1MB, a 19.8% decrease.