Long-Distance Fees Unified in the Nation Beginning Next Month

The long-distance fee will be unified in the nation regardless of differences in distance beginning on November 1st. The current 30-second fee-levying span will change to 10 seconds.

Korea Telecom (KT) announced such a long-distance adjustment plan yesterday, which will take effect starting from November.

The new fee plan indicates that the long-distance service will cost 14.5 won for every 10 seconds, from 32 won to 42 won range for every 30 seconds (within 30-100 kilometers and beyond 100 kilometers). However, the current 39 won for 3 minutes within 30 kilometers will remain.

According to the new fee plan, the fee increased by 36 percent in the second line (30-100 kilometers), and 3.6 percent in the third line (minimum 100 kilometers). Especially, the phone fee in the second line increased relatively higher due to the integration of the fees in the second and the third line, thereby disadvantaging the users who make phone calls mostly in the second line.

For example, the phone fee for every 3 minutes in the second line (Seoul to Daejon) and in the third line (Seoul to Busan) was 192 won and 252 won, respectively, before. The phone fee in these lines will cost 261 won, according to the new plan.

Regarding the phone fee adjustment, Song Yoo-Jong, director of communication business at the Ministry of Information and Communication, said that the phone fee increased in a small range, indicating that fee may be reduced depending on the time.

Along with the long-distance phone service adjustment, the Ministry of Information and Communication announced a measure to boost the competition among long-distance phones yesterday. The Ministry directed the later business companies to retroactively reduce the subscribers` connection fee from this year, and decided to integrate the fees of the later business companies into the KT`s bill.

freewill@donga.com