“We don’t want unlimited phone service”

The ‘mobile phone special privilege group’ with only basic charge, who used to enjoy unlimited phone service to predestinated numbers, is disappearing.

These people are subscribers of ‘017 Family Charge Service’ by Shinseghi Telecommunication in 1998. This service was very popular from the beginning with over more than 440,000 subscribers but the telecommunication company cancelled the service after six months due to lack of profitability. However the existing subscribers continue to enjoy privilege of long phone conversations.

Some subscribers who no longer need the service sold their mobile phone numbers for profit. The service privilege gets drop if a subscriber’s name gets changed so the sale consist of illegal sales and purchase of phone numbers without changing the original subscribers’ names.

However, the illegal on-line trading of ‘Family’ numbers is decreasing recently due to rising recognition for importance of personal information. Among mobile phone users, rising sentiment is that ‘lost due to leakage of personal information is greater than the profit from the sales of phone numbers’. Sentiments about using phone numbers under other people’s names are uncomfortable as well. Recently, a 017 phone number on an Internet auction website was unable to attract any bidders.

Could it be due to these sentiments? The number of ‘Family Service’ subscribers has dropped from 300,000 in the 1999 to 225,000 in 2000. Last year, the recorded number of subscribers was 183,000. The number subscribers have decreased to half within three years. The active response to on-line trading of phone numbers by SK Telecom was also another reason. The SK Telecom has taken responsibility of ‘Family Charge Service’ when they’ve acquired the Shinseghi Telecom. For the past, time the SK Telecom has search out bids on the auction websites and send ‘warning statements’ that warns the purchases are illegal. The SK Telecom emphasizes drawbacks due to lost of personal information and even written contracts on illegal trading are not valid. Also SK states that phone number trading is an illegal act and they warned that legal prosecution could be made on disclosure. An SK officials says, ‘It’s true that there are complains from subscribers who wish enjoy the privilege continuously, but this service is difficult to be maintained on long term”.

Jung-Eun Lee lightee@donga.com