South Korea’s three major operators were fined 33.6 billion won for exaggerating the speed of 5G networks: claiming 20Gbps, but actually 800Mbps

IT House news on May 25th, the Korean Fair Trade Commission announced today that the three major mobile operators in South Korea, SK Telecom, Korea Telecom and LG U+, were fined a total of 336 yuan for falsely exaggerating or deceptively promoting the speed of 5G services and their own products. 100 million won (IT home note: currently about 180 million yuan) fine.

The regulator said the three operators had exaggerated the performance of their 5G network services in their advertisements, given speeds that could only be achieved in limited circumstances, deceiving consumers into thinking they could experience the theoretical benefits of 5G technology. The target speed is 20Gbps. The watchdog said: “When an ad is broadcast,The average download speed of the 5G services of the three operators is only 656Mbps to 801Mbps, which is only 3% to 4% of 20Gbps. The regulator also pointed out that all three operators claimed to be the fastest 5G service providers in South Korea, but did not provide verified test results.

For example, SK Telecom and Korea Telecom claim in their advertisements that it takes only 0.8 seconds to download a 2GB movie file over a 5G network, and LG U+ also claims that it only takes 1 second to transfer a 2.5GB file.None of the ads state that these speeds are achieved under specific conditions.

“Considering the oligopolistic structure of the mobile communications market, we believe that the misleading advertisements of the three operators will have a significant impact on the market’s fair trade rules,” the regulator said. Telecom imposed a fine of 1.68 billion won (currently about 8.988 million yuan), Korea Telecom imposed a fine of 1.39 billion won (currently about 7.436 million yuan), and LG U + imposed a fine of 280 million won (currently about 1.498 million yuan) fine.

It was the second-highest fine imposed by South Korean regulators for fraudulent advertising, after Audi Volkswagen was fined 33.7 billion won in 2017 for providing wrong vehicle emissions information.