Ministry of Science and ICT to Conclude MVNO and Frequency Allocation by June

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 29th that it held the 2nd Special Task Force (TF) meeting to prepare measures to promote competition in the telecommunications market.

Earlier, on the 20th of last month, the Ministry held the 1st meeting of the Special Task Force on Telecommunications Market Competition Promotion Policy and has been gathering various ideas through public forums and meetings with experts and industry representatives.

At the 2nd Special Task Force meeting, Park Yoon-kyu, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, requested, "Please engage in in-depth discussions so that the various opinions gathered so far, such as revitalizing MVNOs and easing frequency usage burdens, can be turned into concrete alternatives."

During previous meetings and working-level sessions of the Special Task Force, there was consensus that policy support is needed for the MVNO market to evolve from simple resale to a new competitive player in the telecommunications market. Vice Minister Park emphasized the need to review specific improvement measures regarding the wholesale provision obligation system and wholesale price calculation methods to enable the emergence of competitive MVNO operators. He also stressed that since there are diverse opinions for and against the regulation of market share by subsidiaries of mobile carriers, a rigorous discussion is necessary to derive reasonable measures.

Regarding frequency policy, it was noted that consideration is needed for aspects that new entrants may perceive as barriers, such as allocation fees and network construction obligations. Since many opinions reflected the conditions of new entrants who require a long time to secure subscribers and economies of scale, as well as the increased uncertainty in the 28 GHz market, the Ministry requested thorough review of these issues as well.

In the subsequent Special Task Force meeting, Lee Min-seok, Director of the Telecommunications Competition Policy Office at the Korea Information Society Development Institute, and Kim Ji-hwan, Head of the Radio Mobile Communications Future Strategy Center, presented various ideas and results of opinion gathering so far, which were then discussed by the attending experts.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated that it will continue expert meetings and working-level sessions reflecting the results of the 2nd Special Task Force meeting and will steadily prepare fundamental measures to promote competition in the telecommunications market by June.

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