<Anchor>

Friendly Economy, reporter Ae-ri Kwon is out. Kwon: Five years ago, when Korea announced that it would be the first country in the world to launch 5G services, I had high hopes that the fees would be high but the speeds would be very fast. But when I actually opened the lid, there were a lot of reactions saying that I don't know what has changed so much, but it seems that these telecom companies have been exaggerating, so they have been fined, right?

<Reporter>
You've probably heard the most impressive thing about 5G that
telecom companies have touted from the beginning: "You can download a movie with 2 gig in one second."

But what do you think? Do you use 5G for anchors? (I'm writing.) Was it downloaded in one second of a two-hour movie?

<Anchor>
I don't think
I'm that fast.

<Reporter>
As of 2021, two years after the launch of 5G services, the average
5G transmission speed of the three telecom companies was only one-twenty-five times that advertised by the three telecom companies.

If you want to download a two-hour movie, you can go fast, and you can open an email, drink a glass of water, and you're done.

The FTC says that the reason for this discrepancy is that telecom companies advertised 5G services on a large scale, with the highest speed that was theoretically possible, the speed that they were aiming for, but which was clear even then that it would not be feasible in practice.

There was no cell phone terminal that could theoretically achieve that target speed.

Considering that it was false and exaggerated advertising, the FTC imposed a fine of 33.6 billion won on all three telecommunications companies.

In 2017, Audi Volkswagen was fined 37 billion won for falsely advertising its emission levels. Since then, it's the second-largest ever.

<Anchor>

So why did the news agencies advertise so much that it wasn't true?

<Reporter>
If you look at the advertisements of telecom companies that have been going on for a
long time until the beginning of this year, you can see things like "maximum speed" and "speed may vary depending on the usage environment."

So they were talking about the speeds that were theoretically possible. I never said that I could always download a two-hour movie in one second.

However, the FTC is of the opinion that the impression conveyed by the advertisement from the perspective of ordinary consumers was not at that level.

In theory, the unrealistic speed that would require only one terminal to connect to a single base station was actually universally available.

The telecommunications companies say they will decide on a response after receiving the FTC's resolution containing the details of the penalty and corrective order.

< anchor>
speed is also
speed, but as 5G services become more common, there are a lot of cell phone interruptions. There are also complaints like this, right?

<Reporter
>
Yes. We're improving, but we have a long way to go. Even now, when I am on the phone, I am a little confused, and if you look at it, I think there are many people who are still experiencing the fact that 5G is not LTE, but has been switched to 3G.

Now, 7 out of 10 people use 5G services.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Korea Institute for Information and Communication Policy, 5G users still use more than 44% less data than their plans provide.

Unlimited data subscribers are 10 times as high as 40% LTE users.

This means that there are many 5G users who are using expensive plans that they don't have to use, the researcher analyzed.

Combined with subsidies for mobile phone machines, they offer discounts to people who use 5G while paying unnecessarily high fees.

When you start using a 5G plan, the quality is still not stable.

With the increase of 5G, the speed of 5G spread has been even faster due to the phenomenon of decreasing LTE speeds, which used to divide communication networks with 5G.

However, even though the use of 5G has been strongly induced and is improving, consumers' disagreements, complaints, and instability have not been resolved.

Although it costs a lot of money to build a 5G environment.

In fact, it is the world's first service in the early days of its introduction, when the instability was greater than it is now, so it can be said that consumers have borne the burden of telecommunications companies while bearing the high fees since the early days when there were large and small trials and errors.

That's why carriers need to come up with more affordable plans and be more proactive in improving the service experience.