Starting from the 4th of next month, the National Assembly Science and Technology Information and Communications Commission will be audited. The overhang was held on the 27th and decided to audit the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 4th and the Korea Communications Commission on the 6th. However, the adoption of witnesses is still being discussed.
According to the National Assembly on the 29th, the National Assembly’s Defense Commission is conducting consultation on the list of witness applications collected by the ruling party. At the time of the plenary session, the over defense was scheduled to decide on the request for attendance requests and reference to the general witness. The Ministry of Science and Technology, which will be held on the 4th, will not attend the general witness.
However, the ruling and opposition parties have posted the list of three telecommunications managers, vice president of the Asia-Pacific region, and vice president of Dean Garfield Netflix policy. While all witnesses will attend, the issues of communication issues such as 5G quality and network Monday are expected to be mainly addressed.
■ The over defense national affairs deals with ‘5G quality controversy’
The ruling and opposition parties applied for the national witness of Yew Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom, KT CEO of KT, and Hwang Hypnosis, LG Plus. The national affairs are expected to deal with problems such as 5G quality controversy and lack of installation of 28GHz base stations.
Since the 5G commercialization in 2018, quality controversy has been steadily raised. According to data released by the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (TRI) on the 12th, 5G users’ satisfaction was 46%, lower than LTE user satisfaction, 52%. 5G users cited the main dissatisfaction with the point (43%) and slow speed (40%) converted to LTE.
It is also expected to deal with the lack of installation of 28GHz base stations. According to the status of the 5G 28GHz base station received from the Ministry of Information and Communication in May, the number of base stations built by three telecommunications companies was 5,57 as of the end of April.
By operator, SK Telecom installed 1,605 units, 1,586 KTS, and 1,868 base stations for LG Plus. This is 10.7%, 10.57%, and 12.45%, respectively, compared to the 45,000 mandatory builders. However, this is a figure that includes a 28GHz subway Wi-Fi jointly built by the three telecommunications companies, and the sum of the 5G 28GHz base stations of the three telecommunications companies except the subway Wi-Fi is lower.
■ ‘Network Contract’ Controversial Netflix, one Witness attendance
The ruling and opposition parties posted Dean Garfield Netflix, vice president of policy, on the list of witnesses. SK Broadband, which has been a lawsuit for network use since 2020 with Netflix, has also been nominated as a witness.
Currently, a total of seven amendments to the National Telecommunications Business Act have been proposed in the National Assembly. In a large framework, the contents’ provider (CP) mandates to pay the network to the Internet provider (ISP), or to make a contract.
Most of the bills posted to the National Assembly limit the subjects to the large-scale CP prescribed by Presidential Decree. Currently, large Cps, which account for more than 1% of the total traffic in Korea, are Google, Netflix, Meta, Never, and Aka.
The overhang held a public hearing on the 20th and listened to the opinions of stakeholders. Since then, the vice president of the Asia-Pacific Regional Vice President of German Anand, said, It is not fair in that it is a disadvantage to the content platform and domestic creators, and it is not fair in that it can benefit only ISP.
It is unclear whether the vice president of Dean Garfield is attended, but the relevant contents are likely to be dealt with.
■ In-app payment
In the over defense, there is also a question about the compulsory policy of Google In-in app. Last year, the National Assembly enacted the ‘Google Prevention Act’, which aims to prohibit app market operators for the first time in the world.
However, Google and Apple have been controversial because they impose discriminatory conditions on the three self-determination methods provided by the app developer during internal payments. In particular, Google has limited app updates if apps registered in the App Store do not introduce their own payments.
App developers are looking forward to the National Assembly in the enforcement stage as well as the legislative stage. As global big tech companies do not bypass the bill, they need to pressure the government and the National Assembly.