South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/10/south_korea_data_access_universal/

by saikatsg • 3 months ago

422 118 3 months ago

jl6• 3 months ago

the scheme will provide over seven million subscribers with unlimited downloads at just 400 kbps after their data allowances expire.

Does this mean it’s not a universal entitlement as such, because you presumably first have to pay for a plan with an allowance? (Not to mention having to pay for a device).

pixel_popping• 3 months ago

I think despite needing money, it can still be considered a right, IDs cost money but you have the right to have them, and I'm pretty sure it means it could extend to government paying for it eventually (depending on your social class I guess).

Joker_vD• 3 months ago

Ah, so it's like the right to own jewelry (historically, there have been places where only nobility could legal own and wear it): you have the right to buy them, no one would stop you or take them away from you, but you still need enough money to buy it.

I imagine the same applies to the rights to live, to have access to water, and to receive medicine help (which is IIRC is why the Soviets claimed they refused to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: they argued for their version of the declaration that would actually bind the stated to make sure those goods/rights are actually universally provided; incidentally — and it's one of the examples they've actually used — that would mean that e.g. printing political leaflets for distribution, falling under free speech and political distribution, would also have to be paid for by someone. As you may imagine, most of the other countries weren't particularly fond of the idea that they'd end up themselves financing the printing and distribution of Communist propaganda).

SoftTalker2• 3 months ago

Something being a right does not mean that it will be provided for you. It simply means the government will not infringe on that.

qingcharles3• 3 months ago

The USA has affordable broadband schemes (I think current setup the gov pays $9.25/mo towards your connection) and IIRC pretty much every broadband provider has a plan at exactly this cost to provide the minimum legal definition of "broadband".

bombcar• 3 months ago

Imagine how wonderful it’d be if the US had fiber to the home that would trickle at 1-10mb/s even with no subscription- but you could subscribe with any provider for more.

Ah, the dream.

fhn2• 3 months ago

You mean the USA had affordable broadband:

"The Affordable Connectivity Program stopped accepting new consumer applications and enrollments on February 7, 2024....On January 11, 2024, due to a lack of additional funding from Congress" [1]

I think SK did the right thing. Access to information is important even at 400kbps which is pretty darn fast considering some people grew up running 56kbps and never complained.

1. https://www.fcc.gov/affordable-connectivity-program

joecool10292• 3 months ago

Kinda surprising so many in the thread have no clue the US has the lifeline program and there's a few providers that will sell 'free' basic lines. It even became a meme when Obama was president: https://www.wikihow.com/Get-an-Obama-Phone

alt227• 3 months ago

In most countries you can either sign up for contracts with regular data allowance, or buy pay-as-you go phones which require topups.

It sounds like if you bought a pay-as-you-go sim card in Korea that it would immediately give you the slower unlimited connection without needing to pay for allowance first.

fhn2• 3 months ago

they gave you a slow lane on their network, whether you can get onto their network is your issue. Phones aren't particularly expensive, I bought mine used for $60 and I've found plenty of working smartphones literally on the curbs. Should they buy you a car and a house too?

p_stuart82• 3 months ago

yeah 400 kbps is almost the easy part. you still need a line, a handset, and apps that still run on the cheapest phone around. hard to call that universal in practice.

techsystems• 3 months ago

Yes it does, but you probably need a bit of context.

They already have free Wi-Fi in every bus stop, train stations, government buildings, etc. like clocks, thermometers, air quality sensors, etc. The free Wi-Fi is very high quality, where you can watch 4K videos without stutters in most places (1080p for other places).

This is more about basics instead of luxurious/entertainment purposes, where if they run out of data on their contracts, the companies must provide data, albeit slow, still, where government provided Wi-Fi can't reach. 400 kbps is good enough for AI text streams, so it's a policy blend for their recently trending slew of AI policies.

I should also mention that it's a compromise from the telecom companies for recent incidents.

ksec3• 3 months ago

The free Wi-Fi is very high quality,

Haven't been to SK in recent years, but assuming quality as it is Fast, how does the log in system work?

My main problem is not speed with modern public WiFi, especially in recent years enterprise WiFI 6 and coming WiFi 7 have gotten much better with signals and receptions. But simply just to use it.

It is at least 3 - 5 steps to have it log in. And the login only works 95% of the time.

Do we have something where a single click of a button and within 100ms we are in? Or even better without even doing anything? I have yet to seen one in real world.

Leomuck2• 3 months ago

Crazy, I've never heard of such a plan anywhere. But given how essential the internet is to everything we do on a daily basis, that makes a lot of sense. However, I would like to see the existing situation that lead to this decision. Were there many people who couldn't do things anymore due to lacking internet access? Was there public pressure to do this or did they just think it a good idea?

My assumption so far was that there are those who use the internet, they're usually fine, and those that don't - they won't benefit much. But no idea about South Korea. Anyway, cheaper and unlimited access is always a good idea!

calvinmorrison• 3 months ago

There are many such schemes for low income households in the united states to subsidize internet access for students. There were some federal and other programs.

Probably LTE is cheaper to deploy then actually wiring a house up anyway.

qingcharles3• 3 months ago

The federal plans still exist, and the wires are already there in most homes, so most providers offer a tiny plan to fit the subsidy.

grahamburger• 3 months ago

I work with a US non-profit that has provided both free and very low cost Internet access over the last 4 years (fixed home wifi, no phone). We have primarily used 4G/5G, including private networks built and owned by the non-profit, public/private partnerships with cities that own a 4G network, and now primarily very low cost wifi hotspots serviced by a major carrier.

edent2• 3 months ago

At the height of the pandemic, the UK mandated zero-rating data for mobile connection to .gov.uk and .NHS.uk domains, along with several other charitable sites.

(I was part of the team working on that proposal.)

aitchnyu• 3 months ago

Umm, was it more than an oppportunistic attack at net neurality?

morkalork• 3 months ago

This is... Shockingly reasonable. Would be perfect if it included other essential services e.g. domains used for online banking.

Markoff2• 3 months ago

meanwhile Czechia literally BANNED free Wi-Fi in restaurants and other establishments during COVID, so people will spend there less time, I understood the rationale if people already didn't have mobile data in phones anyway

other things Czech gov banned during COVID-19 was singing in public places, no kidding!

And I'm not even going to complain they banned sale of the toys, colored pencils and other items so people will spend less time in the shop, so me and kids could just look at the colored pencils behind the tape because we had to go to shop anyway.

ksec3• 3 months ago

Are you part of HMG or was it at telco level ?

cwillu• 3 months ago

Canada requires mobile service providers to have a 35$ a month data plan, and the low-income support payments will add 35$ a month to the base rate if you provide a cell phone bill.

pyreko• 3 months ago

TIL, it's not a perfect solution but given how rough telecoms are here it's at least something I guess.

diath• 3 months ago

Maybe not general data cap exemption but for as long as I remember a lot of carriers in Europe whitelist certain apps that people think of as "essential" that work even when you've reached your data limit - such as WhatsApp and Messenger. Perhaps there are certain applications specific to South Korea that people think as essential/universal and expect them to work without a data plan (even maybe related to the digital ID thing they have there).

anthk2• 3 months ago

Here in Spain a few years ago some ISP's just put a data cap about 2.7KBPS (2-3G?) and call it a day. Enough for text sites, messages and the like. But if you were smart (mosh, NNTP)... you could connect to some public Unix servers and fire up Lynx/Links at crazy speeds under a Tmux window and be able to read sites/blog posts and the like. And with edbrowse, even comment on some simple JS sites.

With some cachés set for my audio player I could even listen to some odd Avant Gardé radio streams -think Frank Zappa like- at http://dir.xiph.org with 16 KBPS quality in OPUS format. Not totally robotic, it sounded better than old MP3's at 32KBPS.

troupo• 3 months ago

Were there many people who couldn't do things anymore due to lacking internet access?

Almost anythijg now requires internet access. Banking, schools, parking, transport tickets, almost any form of communication with almost any organization (besides phone, but some companies don't even have phone numbers anymore) etc.

KellyCriterion3• 3 months ago

But to really reach the poor people, you would also need to deploy phones, not only data/traffic/WiFi: For sure for lot of people 10-20 USD monthly bill is already too high, but buying a phone that is somehow not outdated and capable of running all the apps needed, this is a much higher barrier (of lets say 200-300 USD for a somehow solid phone that will last some time9

gbear6052• 3 months ago

Phones can be had for a lot less than that - you can find decent enough used phones that will last a year or two for under $100, which is cheap enough that almost everyone can scrounge together the money for it.

roughly• 3 months ago

A weird part about the modern world is that a cell phone is incredibly cheap compared to shelter, food, or just about anything else. You’d be surprised how many homeless folks have phones.

Ray202• 3 months ago

of lets say 200-300 USD for a somehow solid phone

More like 30-50 USD, judging by the research I did in 5 minutes (or 20-30 USD if you agree to a used phone).

No, I understand that Americans love to pay several times more for their houses, healthcare, education, coffee and everything else simply on principle, pretending that there are no other options, but you can literally google the largest phone manufacturers in the world and look at the prices of their current starter models.

And yes, we are talking about full-fledged smartphones that are quite pleasant to use, with up-to-date hardware and the latest versions of the operating system. Not some outdated torture devices with zero reliability.

smugma• 3 months ago

In SF, I commonly see homeless people with cell phones

anigbrowl• 3 months ago

I am using an 8 year old phone that was mid when I bought it for ~$300 or so new. It's only in the last year that I've begun to find it annoyingly slow. Now I prefer using an actual computer for most things and only rely on the phone for messaging and maps when I'm out and about (plus some lightweight web browsing) but my point is that mediocre actually works fine. I have hardly any apps on it, if there isn't a web interface I don't need to interact with it.

bobthepanda• 3 months ago

Even in the US which is well behind SK in the digital curve, I’ve heard anecdotally that a huge problem with reintegrating some populations like the homeless, poor or elderly is that job applications are virtually all online now.

jiggunjer2• 3 months ago

This, and owning a bank account, filing taxes, paying bills are all moving to internet only.

Some coffee shops in china you can't even order or pay without their app.

sugarkjube• 3 months ago

But given how essential the internet is to everything we do on a daily basis, that makes a lot of sense.

Well, water is certainly more essential, yet it isn't free.

Food isn't free. Shelter isn't free.

Besides, the services you'd use over this free connection aren't (necessarily) free.

Its not unreasonable to suspect some other agenda, like easier propaganda, subsidising of social media, ...

mattjoyce• 3 months ago

Maybe the reduction in gov paper forms printing and processing, offset the mobile costs.

jiggunjer2• 3 months ago

Actually food water and shelter are free to those who can't afford it in many developed countries.

Leomuck2• 3 months ago

Oi! Fair. I didn't want to imply that access to water, shelter and food was less important. Not at all! It's crazy that we have more than enough for everybody and still people die from hunger, thirst, conditions. I was only trying to say that any effort in the right direction is appreciated. You are correct in pointing out other motives though. That's what I asked myself as well.

sbinnee• 3 months ago

Crazy even to me, a Korean. I just woke up and saw this news on HN. Over the years I watched the price of data was going down drastically in Korea. I had always complained that data in France was much cheaper like 30gb for 10 eur. Then when I came back after around the end of pandemic, the price of data in Korea was actually quite cheap.

Do I know why? No idea. The article alluded fast AI adoption but even senior Korean citizens are all addicted to youtube videos. Soon they will start using AI. Young people are already heavily using AI for everything. So I don’t think it’s for AI adoption.

The recent hacking incidence was a big one, true. But the price had been going down even before.

herbst• 3 months ago

Switzerland is doing that quite a while now.

https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/landline-subscription...

rasz• 3 months ago

I've never heard of such a plan anywhere.

In 2011 Poland 2600MHz LTE band was auctioned off with the condition winning bidderwould offer free 512Kbit mobile internet called 'Bezpłatny Dostęp do Internetu' aka BDI (translates free access to internet) for 3 years, amount of time it should take them to build full country coverage.

... except they failed to build the network deciding to concentrate on most profitable cities instead. National regulating body UKE (Office of Electronic Communications) didnt like that one bit and first expanded free period to 2016, and then in 2016 made extension indefinite until mandated 50% coverage is reached + 3 years. This happened in 2021 forcing them to provide it all the way to 2024.

TLDR 2011-2024 free government mandated mobile 512Kbit internet.

Funnily enough Aero2 - company in question decided it was a good business after all and is still offering "free unlimited" trier, in quotes because you have to renew it every 12 months paying ~$1.5 https://aero2.pl/zasady-dzialania/

everdrive2• 3 months ago

Seems nice but is actually a terrible move. It's another step towards the presumption that everyone should have a smartphone.

kube-system• 3 months ago

Communication access is a universal need and does not necessarily require smartphone usage. The US has had universal access programs since at least the mid 80s

HarHarVeryFunny2• 3 months ago

That's like saying that using tax dollars to pay for roads assumes that everyone has a car.

MOST people do use things like government/taxpayer funded roads, public transportation, water, healthcare, etc that are considered as basic necessities.

As far as everyone needing a smartphone, or e-mail address, that ship has already sailed. Here in the US, try using "Parkmobile" without a mobile phone.

hoppyhoppy22• 3 months ago

Parkmobile lets you call their customer service number to pay for parking, so (assuming that process actually works) you would indeed need a mobile phone, but not a smartphone.

everdrive2• 3 months ago

That's like saying that using tax dollars to pay for roads assumes that everyone has a car.

Well once the government subsidizes roads they proliferate it and becomes more difficult to exist without a car. Your example supports my argument.

try using "Parkmobile" without a mobile phone.

I would never, ever try using "parkmobile"

throwawayk7h2• 3 months ago

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Science and ICT Bae Kyunghoon said the scheme is needed because citizens can’t do without access to online services

So indeed it actually is intended to make online services necessary.

themafia• 3 months ago

that ship has already sailed

"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are."

Anyways, if you actually just say, "I don't have a smartphone" you'll be surprised at how accommodating the world remains.

try using "Parkmobile" without a mobile phone

Okay:

https://support.parkmobile.io/hc/en-us/articles/368547636077...

Was that supposed to be impossible?

philipallstar2• 3 months ago

That's like saying that using tax dollars to pay for roads assumes that everyone has a car.

Not really. Roads carry goods, and they carry emergency vehicles. Pretty universal.

ianm218• 3 months ago

I feel like you are applying a US specific/ western lense to this. In East Asian countries they’ve built lots of infrastructure around that presumption already and are committed to it.

fellowmartian• 3 months ago

Everyone should have a smartphone, just not necessarily a closed down and enshittified one.

Leftium• 3 months ago

unlimited downloads at just 400 kbps after their data allowances expire

This is not new. Many Korean mobile plans actually offer even higher unlimited throttled speeds (up to 10 Mbps!)

- You can filter plans by the unlimited throttled speed on this site. The plans are usually titled by `{data amount} + {throttled speed}`: https://www.moyoplan.com/plans

- Even if not throttled, I think data overage charges were capped at about $13 (20K KRW)

So perhaps unlimited 400 kbps will become standard: i.e. no plans will ever charge data overage fees?

---

The linked statement didn't seem to specifically mention the 400 kbps thing at all.

anthk2• 3 months ago

I'd perfectly live with a forever free connection with about 16/32 KBPS. It can do lots of stuff in text mode. Not for video or big files, but enough to fill some pages.

That would mean accesible web pages, and forget about JS based captchas and the like.

throwawayk7h2• 3 months ago

It'd be great if this moves developers to consider optimizing for lower-end connections.

Telaneo• 3 months ago

One the one hand, yes. On the other hand, it's unreasonable to have to wait 5 minutes to download a 1 MB government PDF form. I guess they too can be optimised so they aren't all that bad, but they often aren't. What can't be optimised is having to upload an image of that form with a signature on it, or whatever else it may be.

shevy-java• 3 months ago

This is actually a really great idea. There should also be universal terminals that people can access on public places or so, even without having a smartphone ready.

Now here in Germany we'll wait for decades for this to happen. For some reason Merz gave up on Germany.

WhyNotHugo• 3 months ago

Libraries often have publicly usable terminals with Internet access. That's not the case in Germany?

qwertfisch• 3 months ago

Not everywhere is a library. Today I visited the main city library of Bremen, and it has only media search terminals in kiosk mode. But there is of course free Wi-Fi, so if you have a smartphone, there should be no problem. There are also some libraries with open access 24/7 using a membership card.

Cities have a lot of free wi-fi locations, but outside of urban areas you would need some kind of mobile or landline rate. The latter has relatively cheap flatrates (as little as 20€ including phone flatrate). Mobile access can be much cheaper, but then if your traffic volume is emptied you only get 64 kbit/s.

flowerthoughts• 3 months ago

This would be huge for IoT. It'll obviously be abused to send "metrics" (a.k.a. private data to be sold) by companies, but still. I hope there's no limit on SIM cards.

iririririr• 3 months ago

brazil and india had these since 2012.

brazil was .25/24h of internet at top (4g) speeds then. which is like $7/mo max. until the gov elected with a steven banon campaign dropped the mandatory plan.

the plan was a punishment for companies not maintaining payphones after getting the spectrum monopoly, which was a requirement on the auction.

Terr_4• 3 months ago

To quote something from a favorite fiction-series, where someone is visiting a relatively backwards planet:

"Poor?" said Cordelia, bewildered. "No electricity? How can it be on the comm network?"
"It's not, of course," answered Vorkosigan.
"Then how can anybody get their schooling?"
"They don't."
Cordelia stared. "I don't understand. How do they get their jobs?"
"A few escape to the Service. The rest prey on each other, mostly." Vorkosigan regarded her face uneasily. "Have you no poverty on Beta Colony?"
"Poverty? Well, some people have more money than others, of course, but... no comconsoles?"
Vorkosigan was diverted from his interrogation. "Is not owning a comconsole the lowest standard of living you can imagine?" he said in wonder.
"It's the first article in the constitution. 'Access to information shall not be abridged.' "

-- Shards of Honor (1986) by Lois McMaster Bujold

Terr_4• 3 months ago

To turn to other, much older publications... The US Constitution was written ~230 year ago, when the state of the art was carrying letters by horse, and it explicitly authorized making a public service to provide it scale, which became the US Postal Service.

If the same ideals and priorities had been applied against today's technology, we'd have the US Networking Service. Certainly not a deluxe ISP (even today USPS exists alongside other package companies and couriers) but an affordable baseline available to all residents.

SecretDreams• 3 months ago

I completely agree with this sentiment. Good luck getting anything like that locked, sadly.

mcmcmc• 3 months ago

I’ve always thought it a travesty that USPS doesn’t provide a public email service

zem• 3 months ago

malka older's "infomocracy" is another interesting science fiction look at universal access to information

mstobb• 3 months ago

I just read this book a week ago. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Bujold has excellent prose. A joy to read.

classified• 3 months ago

Every country should do that.

emilfihlman• 3 months ago

As a Finn this data allowance is pretty funny to me (though of course not unknown). Here most subscriptions are unlimited.

hsbauauvhabzb• 3 months ago

Part of me is all for this but I also get the knee jerk reaction of ‘if something is free, you’re the product’

What’s in this for the for profit companies? wouldn’t this cannibalize sales to the demographics that would be buying a cheap prepaid plan if it doesn’t already exist?

Maybe i live less chronically online (but still on my phone) than most, but having spent a few weeks in Japan. I’ll assume prices are similar due to localities, similar-enough cultures and densities. My partner and I shared a 3gb SIM and wifi tethering because of the pricing and lack of need for on demand data (we download movies to our devices when on a high speed networks). I would be fine on 400kpbs while away from hotels and public wifi, and I imagine many tourists will be in the same boat, killing a lucrative segment of the market.

rldjbpin• 3 months ago

this does not come across that impressive beyond the surface. however, given the market inefficiencies (see Twitch saga over double charging of bandwidth [1]) despite having some of the fastest and (relatively) affordable internet has always made it an interesting case study.

throttled speed beyond cap is something i've grown up seeing since the ADSL days, but mandating it across the handful of providers can perhaps help with the odd Line text or two.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38539167

South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access

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