주요국 인터넷전화 제도의 비교 분석

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to conduct an international comparison on market environment and regulatory policy surrounding IP telephony in U.S., Japan, and Korea, and to suggest a desirable direction in regulatory policy for the Korean IP telephony service. For a comparative analysis of market environment by country, six criteria are used: market size, types of the service, development of value added services, market competition, stages of market development, and regulation jurisdiction. On the other hand, five key factors at issue in connection with IP telephony regulation, such as service classification, telephone numbering system, interconnection, safety regulation, and USF(Universal Service Fund), are used as indices for a comparative analysis on regulatory policy among three countries. These analyses show that the regulatory policy of each country has been greatly influenced by its market environment. Especially, we find that unlike U.S., Japan and Korea has the similarity in regulatory policy caused by the analogy of their market environment. In the latter part of this paper, the paper presents the direction of regulatory policy for the IP telephony equivalent to local call which is not yet clearly represented in South Korea. It is necessary for the regulatory agency to regulate strongly at the established local call level from the public interest point of view, but to regulate weekly at the lower level than the existing local call level from the fair-competition point of view, respectively, for the IP telephony equivalent to local call.