South Korea's Parliament Debates About Big Tech's Network Costs

JAKARTA - South Korean lawmakers engaged in a heated debate on Friday, October 21 over a proposed law to make global content providers such as Netflix and Alphabet's Google pay network fees in South Korea.

The considerations reflect efforts in Europe by some countries who want the European Commission to pass laws ensuring some Big Tech companies finance telecommunications infrastructure, as video streaming and other data usage is now soaring.

Various versions of the law have been proposed in South Korea in the hope of making content companies pay what reform advocates call a fair price.

The hearing is expected to conclude by Friday evening, but the proposal still looks a long way from progressing to the next stage of the legislative process.

"Google and Netflix account for more than a third of domestic (internet) traffic. It is appropriate for global companies to look at this matter more proactively," South Korean lawmaker Hong Suk-joon said during the trial, quoted by Reuters.

But others disagree, saying that charging big tech companies could mean they could raise their own fees and undermine local content creators in South Korea.

"It risks the collapse of domestic content providers while trying to protect a small number of domestic internet service providers," said Jung Chung-rae, head of the parliamentary committee overseeing the matter.

According to the activist group Opennet, Google's YouTube has also campaigned against the bill and more than 259,824 people have signed a petition against the law.

"It is important to thoroughly review the way businesses are run," Google's South Korean director Kyoung Hoon Kim, told lawmakers. It refers to what will happen if the law is introduced.

Liz Chung, director of Netflix's South Korea unit, also said her company was looking at ways to deal with the traffic spike.

"We are developing a number of technical measures to utilize the network efficiently and respond appropriately to traffic growth," Chung said.

In Europe, regulators' plans to make Google, Meta and Netflix cover some of the costs of telecom networks have been welcomed by major telecom operators. However, the smaller ones warned that it would distort the telecommunications market and jeopardize competition.

Experts also say the expense of building and maintaining cables and underwater infrastructure that carries data from one place to another and the exploding popularity of global video content have increased the cost of carrying stored data overseas.

According to data provider Mobile Index., YouTube has 41.8 million active users in South Korea, out of a population of 51.6 million in the country. They used YouTube a total of 1.38 billion hours in September.

According to Sweden's Ericsson in a June report, global mobile data traffic reached 67 exabytes per month by the end of 2021, and is projected to reach 282 exabytes by 2027. Video traffic accounts for about 69% of this traffic, and is expected to increase to 79% by 2027.

South Korean network provider SK Broadband has sued in court in hopes of making Big Tech pay for the data fees.

"(The legislation) could have an impact including content providers charging end users," said Kim Hyun-kyung, professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology.