The unused rate of mobile vouchers given to customers when they newly sign up for high-speed internet or renew contracts has exceeded 5 percent over the past three years. The value of vouchers that expired before use could reach up to 42 billion won a year, an analysis showed.

Data submitted by three internet service providers to Jang-gyeom Kim (김장겸), a People Power Party lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, showed the average annual unused rate was 5.6 percent in 2023, 5.2 percent in 2024 and 5.4 percent in 2025. The three-year average was about 5.4 percent.

Voucher validity periods ranged from as short as 60 days to as long as 1 year, depending on the type. No company specified the validity period of gifts or how to handle vouchers upon expiration in its internet subscription application. LG Uplus was the only company to provide separate notices before expiry.

Kim’s office said that applying the three telecom companies’ high-speed internet subscriber bases, the typical three-year contract cycle and average voucher amounts suggests last year’s unused vouchers totalled at least 25.0 billion won and at most 42.0 billion won. It pointed to criticism that telecom companies actively use such gifts to attract subscribers but were lax in guidance and follow-up management to ensure customers can actually receive the benefits.

After Kim raised the issue, the three telecom companies agreed to improve procedures for issuing and managing such gifts. They plan to clearly 안내 the validity period and conditions of use in subscription applications and when sending mobile vouchers, and to set up a system within this year to provide separate notices before expiration. They are also pursuing measures to reissue expired vouchers or extend the usage period at a customer’s request.

Kim said, "Notices before expiration and reissuance or extensions should be the minimum measures that must naturally be guaranteed." He added, "The structure in which the less customers use these gifts, the more the business benefits must be improved."