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Seoul YMCA Citizens’ Mediation Center
We welcome SKT’s decision to provide a free CID service, which is only natural!
SMS should also be made a free service within the year!
SKT, the leader in local mobile phone service market, announced yesterday that it plans to provide its CID service free from January next year. We welcome this decision as it is only natural, though it came very late. We hope that KTF and LGT will follow suit and also make their decision for a free CID service.
Seoul YMCA Citizens’ Mediation Center has launched campaigns for a free CID free service, having stated since 2002 that the mobile phone service operators should not impose any charge for it. As already known, the mobile phone CID is a basic function that is enabled without any additional investment, and should thus be provided free of charge. We have urged the Information and Communication Ministry and the service operators to make it a free service, making it clear that the responsibility lies with the Ministry since it has helped the service operators to collect a very expensive rate by giving the false impression that the service was a great new item of technology.
The service operators lowered their CID service rate from 2,000 to 1,000 won in 2003, but that was simply a quick fix. We have also declared that both SMS and CID should be provided free of charge, and we have issued statements, written open letters to the mobile phone service operators, staged a one-person relay sit-in, a street parody performance across the nation, an online demonstration and an open forum in order to put pressure on them.
Last April the consumer action for free SMS and CID services, organized as part of the consumer campaign against the mobile phone service operators, attracted great interest and participation by numerous mobile phone users and other citizens. Ordinary citizens throughout the country have actively participated in the one-person sit-in and signature collection, and have shown their support through physical or online participation. This is highly significant as they have actively raised an issue about the unfair rates being imposed on the entire nation, as it is much more than a mere understanding that these exploitative rates be lowered among the consumers.
Immediately after the Information and Communication Ministry expressed its opinion that the “CID rate should better be integrated into the basic service rate last July,” free CID and SMS services became an important subject of controversy during the annual National Assembly audit in September. The various political parties also expressed political awareness of the 38 million mobile phone service consumers. After all, we believe that the active participation of a large number of consumers attracted the attention of citizens and political societies, driving SKT, the prevailing operator in the mobile phone service market, to make CID a free service.
Given the nature of a mobile phone service that use radio waves, the people’s resource, it is necessary to consider consumer convenience as well as market logic in order to set up a more persuasive rate system. We hope that the current action for free CID will provide an opportunity for the Ministry of Information and Communication and the mobile phone service operators to equally consider both their market growth and the benefit of the 38 million consumers who have been the foundation of service growth. We also hope that SMS, which has become a popular service, will also be provided free of charge given the rate of CID cancellation.
▶ Contact: Min Tae-sik, Kim Hui-kyeong Secretary (02-725-1400) |
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Seoul YWCA Consumer Information Center
1318 Alchan (Solid) Motiquette Street Campaign Held
Seoul YWCA Consumer Information Center will conduct the Motiquette (Mobile Phone Etiquette) street campaign for teenagers in Myung-dong at 11:00am on 22 October 2005 (Sat.).
The campaign theme is ‘Keep Motiquette and Abstain from Mobile Phone Abuse’. A life guide booklet for ‘Keeping Motiquette and Reducing Your Phone Bill’ will be distributed and a street performance (hip hap dance) expressing abusive mobile phone use will be staged to promote a sound culture of mobile phone use.
<Campaign Outline>
Title: 1318 Alchan (Solid) Motiquette Street Campaign
Date: 11:00 ~ 14:00 hours, 22 October 2005 (Sat.)
Venue: Myung-dong Street
Programs: Three street programs
- 1st course: Survey of mobile phone user concepts (a bulletin board will be
installed on Myung-dong Street)
- 2nd course: Consumer proposals for establishing a sound mobile phone culture
(Consumers will write their own ideas about sound mobile phone
culture on a bulletin board)
- 3rd course: Performance
(Hip hop dance performance to symbolically express the need for
reasonable mobile phone service use among teenagers)
◈ Gift item and “1318 Alchan Motiquette Booklet” will be given to teenagers who participate in all three programs.
▶ Contact: Choe Eun-ju, Secretary (02-3705-6065) |
