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[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Paul Lee] The Fair Trade Commission on the 24th imposed a total of 33.6 billion won on three mobile carriers including SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus for "inflating the speed of 5G communication data transmission 25 times."

The fine imposed on violations of the Display Advertising Act is the second-largest ever since Germany's Audi Volkswagen's 2017 emission display advertisement case (37.3 billion won). The Korea Fair Trade Commission said, "The three telecommunication companies advertised only with the highest speed in theory," adding, "Only when the transmission speed in the actual usage environment is marked do consumers not mistake it." The three telecommunications companies are said to be considering administrative litigation against FTC sanctions.

The fines imposed on the three telecom companies are SK Telecom 16.829 billion won, KT 13931 million won and LG Uplus 2.85 billion won. It was decided considering the sales of each company. The Fair Trade Commission also issued a correction order and an announcement order. This is the first time that the FTC has sanctioned the speed of telecommunication services for unfair advertising.

According to the Fair Trade Commission, the three telecommunication companies posted advertisements such as "20Gbps" and "download a single HD (high-definition) 2GB movie in 0.8 seconds" for 5G speed through their website and SNS for two to four years from 2017 to 2018.

However, 20Gbps is only a target speed according to technical standards and cannot be implemented with the frequency band and bandwidth allocated by the three telecommunication companies. Mobile phone terminals that support high-frequency bands have not been released. It's a speed that consumers can't use. In 2021, the three companies' 5G transmission speeds averaged 0.8Gbps, which was only one-twentieth of 20Gbps in advertising.

Throughout the advertising period, the average speed was 656∼801Mbps, which is about 3∼4% of 20Gbps. It was 3.8∼6.8 times the speed of LTE during the same period.

The three telecommunication companies have also advertised that their 5G service speed is faster than their competitors without objective grounds. For example, advertisements such as "SK Telecom is ahead of 5G speed," "KT 5G speed leading the country," and "LG Uplus, which is four times faster than other companies."

 

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