Facebook has decided to pay network fees to SK Broadband for the first time.
If a deal with KT and LG U+, which are currently negotiating for renewal of a contract, is concluded, Facebook will pay a reasonable price to a South Korean telecommunication company for the first time among global content providers (CPs) that have entered South Korea. Accordingly, attention is focusing on how Facebook’s decision will affect South Korean businesses such as Naver and Kakao and global content providers that are in dispute over equity as they use facilities of South Korean telecommunication businesses such as Google and Netflix but are not paying due.
According to IT industry and authorities on the 27th, Facebook and SK Broadband agreed to negotiate about two years of network fees on the 24th. During the negotiations, Facebook will pay a significant amount of network fees to SK Broadband over the next two years, and it will automatically extend the contract for two years if there is no specific request until the contract expires a month ago. This is the first time that Facebook has paid network fees to SK Broadband in nine years since it entered South Korea in 2010. Although Facebook and SK Broadband did not disclose specific network fees, it is heard that they are significantly more expensive than the amount that Facebook proposed last year and SK Broadband’s spending on Facebook-related services.
“Although there was a big difference in price with SK Broadband in 2016 when there was a problem regarding settlement of telecommunication businesses due to changes in notice of mutual connection, we have made some concessions to each other.”
Representative for Facebook.
