Budget Phone Industry Discusses Business Plans... Sunset of Mandatory Network Provision 'Challenge'

Altteul Phone Association 2022 Annual General Meeting Held

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] The Korea Mobile Virtual Network Operator Association (KMVNO), which consists of domestic MVNO operators, announced that it held its 2022 regular general meeting on the 8th.

About 20 people attended the regular general meeting, including Chairman Kim Hyung-jin, representatives of member companies, and executives. Matters such as last year's performance and settlement report, approval of the 2021 business plan and budget, and election of the next executives due to term expiration were decided.

The association plans to carry out major business projects this year, including ▲ amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act related to MVNOs ▲ revisions to the wholesale price notification ▲ extension of the sunset period for mandatory wholesale providers, and other legislative and institutional improvements.

This year, unresolved issues from last year as well as the sunset task of the mandatory network provision system overlapped. This is because the three-year mandatory provision period of SK Telecom, the mandatory wholesale provider, is scheduled to end in September. Under the current law, mandatory providers have a fixed period related to wholesale provision, so the mandatory provider system has been temporarily maintained every three years through legal amendments. Without network provision, the industry faces an existential crisis.

Chairman Kim Hyung-jin stated, “At the end of last year, we entered the era of 10 million MVNO users, but the MVNO industry still faces a difficult market environment,” adding, “To overcome this, we must strive to protect user rights and fundamentally improve the system so that MVNOs can firmly establish themselves as a reasonable alternative for telecommunication services.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.