South Korea’s Entritrust regulator has imposed a hefty fine of 33.6 billion won, approximately Rs 209 crore, on three major mobile service providers in the country.
The fine comes as a consequence of these companies making false claims about the speed of their 5G networks in their advertisements.
The companies facing penalties are SK Telecom, KT Corporation, and LG Plus.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has stated that Uplus, a subsidiary of LG Plus, may have exaggerated its 5G network service.
The regulatory watchdog found evidence of these companies providing incorrect information about the speed of their services,
deceiving consumers in the process.
One of the false claims made by SK Telecom and KT was that their 5G networks could download a 2GB movie in a mere 0.8 seconds.
Similarly, LG Uplus boasted that it only took one second to download a 2.5GB movie. However, upon investigation,
it was revealed that these claims did not hold up in reality.
Contrary to the grandiose promises, the average downloading speeds offered by these three companies ranged between 656 and 801 Mbps, falling significantly short of the advertised 20gbps.
This discrepancy led to the hefty fine being imposed.
Notably, this penalty ranks as the second-largest fine ever issued by the Entritrust regulator.
Previously, in 2017, Volkswagen was fined 33.7 billion Won, approximately Rs 210 crore, for misleading consumers with false emission standards information in their cars.
