Measures pertaining to Advertisement of Indication of Speed of Data Communications Services, etc. against eAccess Ltd. (Administrative Guidance)

1.Background

  (1) Mobile communication services are essential for the people’s life. Therefore, it is considered to be beneficial to strive to clearly transmit the content of advertisement of services provided by mobile communication providers to users thereof so that users themselves can choose appropriate services for the protection of interests of users as provided for in the objective of Article 1 of the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No.86 of 1984).
  (2) In response, mobile communications providers have made efforts for promotion of regulation of advertisement by giving consideration to easy-to-understand expressions for users including communication speed and coverage areas based on the voluntary industry rules formulated by the Telecom Services Association titled “Voluntary Standards and Guidelines for Advertisement of Telecom Services.”
  (3) However, eAccess Ltd. posted advertisement of data communications services that may cause misunderstanding of users.
 

2.Content of measures, etc.

  The MIC guided eAccess Ltd. to provide easy-to-understand information that is not likely to be misunderstood by users and proper indication in advertisement created by the company, design preventive measures as soon as possible, submit a report by December 17, 2012 and commit to thorough implementation thereof.
  In addition, the MIC requested the Telecommunications Carriers Association, an industry organization of telecommunications carriers, to raise awareness of its members with regard to the same point. Moreover, the MIC requested the Telecom Services Promotion Conference to further implement measures for ensuring the indication of proper advertisement.
  The MIC will continue to commit to protecting the interests of users of telecommunications services.