The Korea Consumer Agency (www.kca.go.kr) recently released a survey on mobile phone service fees of voice calling, international roaming, and SMS by comparing those for other countries.
□ Survey results
l According to the survey, Korea ranked at 3rd place for voice calling fees when compared with each leading mobile telecom company of eight OECD companies plus Hong Kong, and Singapore.
l Compared with average voice calling fees for mobile telcos in each countries,
- Korea ranked at 14th place among 26 OECD member nations plus Israel, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
- Among 15 nations with similar voice calling traffic, Koreans pays the most expensive voice calling price for mobile phone.
※ Calling fees are based on Revenue per Minute (RPM)
□ International roaming fee
In terms of international roaming service fees, Korea ranked high at 2nd place for inbound calling calls (from foreign countries to Korea) among the ten nations. However, Koreans pays less expensive calling fees from the staying nation to the staying nation itself (for example, while staying in the United States, making a phone call to the US) ranked at 9th place.
□ For SMS fees (based on unit price), Korea ranked in the lowest, at 10th place among the leading mobile telco of each 10 nations.
l Yet, SMS fees in foreign nations could be lowered than the unit price, that the survey is based on, when considering that foreign mobile service subscribers enjoy a variety of products with larger service fee discounts based on inner network discount scheme and free SMS offer at certain level.
◆ Based on the survey results, the KCA plans to make a recommendation of system improvement to rationalize the fee level to related authorities.
※ Comparison such as ranking is based on purchasing power parity (PPP rate).
※ Voice calling fee is based on the average for 2008, while international roaming and SMS fee are based on those as of May, 2009.
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