전기통신사업법 개정안의 문제점과 통신 도매시장 활성화를 위한 법적 과제

The Ministry of Government Legislation has completed its deliberations on the "partial revision draft to the Electricity and Telecommunications Industry Act," which makes resale obligatory, and has referred it to the Science, Technology, Information & Telecommunications Committee of the National Assembly. When this draft goes into effect, Korea's telecommunications market - especially the mobile telecommunications market - will see the emergence of a completely new market participant, the resale businesses. This should boost competition. However, the degree to which competition is promoted will depend on how effectively hindrances to the emergence of this new type of business are resolved. Among other things, there will be complaints of excessive regulation and anti-competitive market policy as well as arguments over profitability, who will bear the initial investment costs, uncertainty about cooperation by resale providers, and so on. Through this revision, the government intends to expedite competition by lowering entry barriers and reduce mobile telecommunications charges for the general public. The draft is meant to create several legal tools to drive this change. The major thrust of the revision is introduction of wholesale regulation and relaxing of retail regulation to improve regulation on telecommunications charges (Addition of Article 33-8 and revision of Articles 29 and 36-3 in the draft). Under the current system, new businesses face high structural barriers to entry such as frequency limits, and in principle, telecommunications businesses determine telecommunications charges on their own and report them to the authorities. Nevertheless, market-controlling businesses(KT's city call and high-speed Internet service and SK's mobile calling) require appropriate ministers' approval when setting charges. The revision introduces wholesale regulation to create an environment where a new business without a telecommunications network can advance into the retail market, and thereby provide services at rates different from those of existing businesses. It facilitates competition and induces market entry by various businesses from the industries of distribution, finance, and others. 'Wholesale regulation' will minimize abuse of market power by a few companies and induce rate competition. The system for reduction of charges, which is 'retail regulation', is designed to bring about conversion to the reporting system step-by-step. Once the revised resale system firmly takes root, the advancement of new businesses will be much easier, doing much to vitalize competition. Still, there will likely be many hurdles to overcome before the wholesale market becomes active as a result of the revision. This paper will consider the significance and issues of the draft revision from various viewpoints and suggest legal tasks for the vitalization of the telecommunications wholesale market.