Korea's second largest mobile carrier KT was found out it cut down service charges by more than half even after providing a large number of Internet connections for a local network company.
The company's labor union and local civic group People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy pointed out the illegal and unethical management, calling for ethical management.
They said in a press briefing, "KT cut down its service charge for a certain company by more than half during one year and four months, violating Telecommunications Business Act."
They added, "Giga-Internet services were subscribed intensively during the period of executives' performance assessment at the end of last year. Then, most of the deals were cancelled this year without penalty for breach of contract."
A network company located in Gyeonggi Province reportedly received deductions amounting to 900 million won out of the total Internet charge of 1.7 billion won, which incurred from April to July last year.
This violates the article 50 of Telecommunications Business Act, which prohibits a company from providing telecommunication service differently from the users' agreement.
The civic group also said, "KT must have given preference to some companies by violating the law or some executives had ill-gotten gains by exaggerating achievements."
The company's whistle-blowers said KT executives and its chief Hwang Chang-gyu received large amount of bonus and got promotion on the ground of performance improvement during the first quarter of this year.
The period of the massive Internet service subscription coincided with the time when Hwang pressured employees to show performance, emphasizing Giga-Internet as a core business of creative economy.
Hwang said at the Mobile World Congress held in March, "We will open up GiGatopia in the ear of Internet of Things connecting all the things into network," adding that, "5G will be a venue for opportunity for startups and the core technology of creative economy."
Civic groups said KT may not have gained any profits from the company even after providing massive Internet services while the executives were promoted.
