South Korea's mobile phone operators will lower their fee rates in an effort to help local households cut their communications costs, Yonhap News Agency said, quoting the telecom regulator.
The move comes as South Korea's three mobile operators have been under fire for charging higher rates than carriers in other member nations of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said the three carriers ― SK Telecom, KT and LG Telecom ― have accepted its proposal to reduce their rates, a move expected to help households cut communications costs by up to 8 percent.
"Mobile carriers will voluntarily lower their charges through increased competition and cuts in their excessive marketing expenses," the regulator was quoted as saying.
According to the KCC, industry leader SK Telecom will change the way call charges are calculated, starting in March next year. Instead of billing for every 10 seconds of usage, the company will start charging per second.
For the first time since 2000, SK and No. 2 carrier KT will also cut activation fees for their mobile services, paid in the first month of the mobile service, by as much as 20 percent.
Starting in November, all three companies will bring down charges for long-term customers and promote the use of pay-as-you-go mobile services. They will lower the prepaid rate by 15 to 25 percent.
As the recent rise of smartphones drives demand for cheap data plans, the mobile providers will also cut mobile data fees by the maximum 88 percent, the commission said.
The commission forecast that the expected fee cuts would enable mobile phone customers to reduce their communications costs 7,730 won (US$6.52) per month.
Industry watchers expressed concerns that the move could eat into the mobile carriers' earnings down the road.