New Regulation Goes into Effect on Dec. 10
The so-called “Netflix Act,” which holds content providers (CPs) responsible for Internet service quality, will be applied to companies with average daily users of one million or more beginning from Dec. 10. As a result, large domestic and foreign CPs such as Naver, Kakao, Google, and Netflix will have to take responsibility for the stability of domestic Internet services.
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Dec. 1 that an amended Enforcement Decree to the Telecommunications Business Act has passed a cabinet meeting and will take effect on Dec. 10. The revised decree specifies the companies that are held responsible for ensuring the stability of value added telecom services.
The amendment is applied to value added carriers with average daily numbers of users and traffic of more than one million people each and more than 1 percent of the total traffic volume in Korea in the final three months of the previous year.
One percent equals traffic volume which takes place when about 35,000 HD video viewers throughout one day or about 50 million people use instant messaging, social media and information retrieval among others. The standard covers five companies -- Google, Netflix, Facebook, Naver and Kakao.
Value added carriers subject to the conditions must provide services without discriminating against use environments for terminals or Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to secure means for service stability.
They must take measures to prevent technical errors and traffic from flooding, and consult with relevant operators if necessary for a change in the amount of traffic. If a traffic path is changed, value added carrier should be notified in advance.
To top it off, they are required to secure an online/ARS system, inform users of their contact information for consultation if they inspect services in advance, or their service speed slows down. When a user puts a stop to his or her service contract and requests for data transmission, they should secure means for the data transmission.