The Fair Trade Commission has imposed sanctions on the three mobile carriers for their advertising practices related to 5G speed.

The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 24th that it had imposed corrective orders, public announcement orders, and fines of 33.6 billion won on SKT, KT, and LG Uplus for falsely exaggerating the speed of their 5G services, engaging in deceptive advertising, and engaging in unfair comparative advertising.

The Fair Trade Commission has sanctioned the three mobile carriers for the following acts: 1) advertising that consumers can actually use the 20 Gbps target speed of the 5G technology standard, which is difficult to implement in an actual usage environment; 2) advertising that consumers can use the maximum supported speed calculated under the allocated frequency band and strict preconditions; and 3) advertising that the 5G service speed is faster than that of competitors without objective basis.

The Fair Trade Commission acknowledged the advertising's illegality by examining the impressions conveyed by the advertisement from the perspective of general consumers.

In addition, the average actual speed of the three companies in 2021 was 0.8 Gbps, which was acknowledged to be false and exaggerated, and it was acknowledged to be deceptive in that it omitted the fact that the advertised speed is a result derived when assuming a situation different from the actual usage environment.

It also acknowledged the unfairness of its own employees measuring and comparing it with other companies based only on results favorable to itself.

This government's first sanction can be seen as a measure against the intensive advertising before and after the commercialization of 5G services in 2019, and as a result of the cancellation of the allocation of the 28 GHz high-frequency 5G band by the three mobile carriers.

The three mobile carriers did not build appropriate base stations for the 5G 28Ghz band commercial network, nor did they release 28Ghz mobile phone terminal models, citing difficulties in securing profitability. According to the survey results, the average speed of 5G services during the advertising period was only 656-801Mbps, which is about 3-4% of 20Gbps.

Accordingly, in late December last year, the Ministry of Science and ICT imposed conditions on KT and LG Uplus, who failed to meet the conditions imposed when allocating 5G frequencies in 2018, such as cancellation, and on SKT, such as shortening the 28GHz frequency usage period, but eventually notified SKT in advance of the allocation cancellation decision in May.

Therefore, this initial measure is judged to be the first sanction imposed after the final decision was made to cancel the allocation of the 28Ghz frequency, despite ongoing consumer complaints about exaggerated advertising of 5G service speeds.

The government has been promoting the search for a new fourth operator for the 5G 28Ghz frequency band, excluding the three mobile carriers, but according to the industry, there currently appears to be no operator willing to step forward, and consumers who have been paying expensive prices for 5G plans are expected to become increasingly dissatisfied.