Due to Different Standard?
A report released last month that South Korea has the second highest smartphone data charges among the world’s major countries. In this regard, some local mobile carriers said the report is inaccurate data that did not reflect actual data nor consider quality variables.
According to telecommunications industry sources on May 7, Finland-based communications management consulting firm Rewheel recently put out a report titled “The state of 4G pricing” for the first half of 2018. The company analyzed thousands of smartphone data and mobile broadband service plans across 41 countries in the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Rewheel analyzed the countrywide median per-gigabyte price for 4G smartphone data services under long-term evolution (LTE) networks that provided at least 1,000 minutes of voice calling and a connection speed of 3 megabits per second or more for video streaming. The findings showed that the average cost for 1 gigabyte of mobile data in South Korea came to 13.90 euros (US$16.63 or 17,906 won) in April, making South Korea the second highest among the 41 countries compared. The top-ranked country with 16 euros (US$19.14 or 20,611 won) was not named. Canada came in third at 9.60 euros (US$11.48 or 12,367 won), while the United States stood at fifth place with 7 euros (US$8.37 or 9,017 won). Finland posted the cheapest price for the same amount of data at 0.2 euro (US$0.24 or 258 won), a seventieth of that of South Korea. Compared to November 2017, the price in South Korea inched up 0.5 euro (US$0.60 or 644 won) while that of Finland edged down 0.1 euro (US$0.12 or 129 won), further widening the gap between the two countries from 45 times to 70 times. The average price for 1 gigabyte of mobile data for the members of the EU came to 2.3 euros (US$2.75 or 2,963 won), and those of the OECD member states had the comparable figure of 2.9 euros (US$3.47 or 3,756 won).
South Korean telecom companies objected to the findings last month, saying “The mobile plans surveyed were not the most popular packages in the country and that such international surveys did not take their top-notch network environments into consideration.” In South Korea, data-centered plans providing unlimited voice calling are universal, and the inclusion of low-cost plans with relatively high data pricing in the comparison resulted in the data price coming out as high. By contrast, most plans provide more than 1,000 minutes of voice calling and unlimited data in Finland, resulting in much lower data pricing.
In addition, they also said that the study chose the median price for 12 plans from the nation’s three main telecoms, but the countries surveyed have different numbers of plans and South Korea’s 25 percent optional agreement discount system and discount phones with lower rates were not included in the analysis.
An official from the telecom industry said, “Rewheel’s report said South Korea charges 13.4 euros (US$16.03 or 17,262 won) per gigabyte for 4G smartphone data services, but the figure is higher than what local consumers actually pay. Simply applying a 25 percent optional agreement discount system, the cost decreases to 10 euros (US$11.96 or 12,882 won) per gigabyte, which is a similar level with the U.S. that ranked sixth.”
Mobile carriers also pointed out that the quality, like the speed of data, is an important factor to determine the price worth paying. According to the study for LTE service quality in the world, the download and upload speeds in Europe are among the lowest in the world with 30.51 and 14.03 megabits per second, which are two to three times slower than those of South Korea with 117.51 and 26.84 megabits per second.