A survey conducted by Open Network, a non-governmental organization, found that four out of 10 South Koreans do not support the mandatory network usage fee legislation that the National Assembly is mulling. Several National Assembly members last year proposed an amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act to detail content providers’ obligations to pay for using Korean networks to deliver their content to local users. The network fee issue stems from the 2016 revision of the Interconnection Standards for Telecommunication Facilities law, which required the country’s three major internet service providers (ISPs) — SK Broadband, KT and LG U+ — to pay additional fees to send data to one another.

43.7% of respondents opposed the proposed law, while 30.1% supported it. 26.1% of respondents answered with “I don’t know” when asked about the proposed law. 62.9% of respondents believe that ISPs will pass on the fees to consumers. However, 51.6% of respondents agreed that it was unfair that foreign content providers, such as Netflix and Google, have not paid network usage fees.