Photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
Photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A government program that reduces telecommunications fees for people with disabilities, the elderly and low-income households left more than 2.1 million eligible recipients without benefits in the first half of this year alone, according to data submitted to the National Assembly.

The Ministry of Science and ICT submitted the data to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Hwang Jeong-a, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee. It showed that about 10.67 million people were eligible for the telecom fee reduction program in the first half of this year.

Of those, about 8.57 million actually received the discount, leaving roughly 2.1 million — about one in five eligible recipients, or approximately 20 percent of the total — without benefits.

Total telecom fee reductions in the first half of this year came to 711.71 billion won ($514 million). Among those who received the discount, the average reduction per person was about 83,005 won for the half-year period, or roughly 13,834 won per month.

Applied to the approximately 2.1 million eligible recipients who did not receive the benefit, the total amount they missed out on in the first half of the year is estimated at about 174.3 billion won.

As the number of eligible recipients has grown, so too has the number of those who fail to receive the benefit.

The number of eligible recipients rose from about 9.42 million in 2022 to about 10.67 million this year — an increase of roughly 1.25 million. Over the same period, the number of non-recipients in the first half of each year climbed from 1.8 million in 2022 to 1.86 million in 2023, 2.01 million in 2024, 2.04 million in 2025 and about 2.1 million this year.

Under the current Telecommunications Business Act, people with disabilities, low-income earners and other vulnerable groups are entitled to reduced telecom fees. However, eligible individuals must apply in person at a carrier's retail outlet or a community service center, or submit a request online or through a customer service line.

As a result, elderly people and those with disabilities — who often have limited access to information — frequently miss out because they are unaware of the program or encounter difficulties navigating the application process.

"The fact that more than 2 million vulnerable people who are eligible for telecom fee reductions fail to receive them every year means the current application-based system alone cannot close the gaps in coverage," Hwang said.

She went on to say that "the system needs to be reformed so that, for those who consent to sharing their personal information, eligibility verification and the telecom fee reduction can be automatically linked."


betterj@heraldcorp.com