By I have to wonder if this crackdown on minors using cell phones will be as successful as the prostitution crackdown?:
Phone bill angst is rife in South Korea, where data from mobile service operators show that four out of five people own a handset and at least six out of ten school-age children have one.
A Telecommunications Ministry official said on Friday that from January, children will need parental permission to go above a pre-set limit, which can be up to 30,000 won ($32.57) a month.
Parents will also receive detailed information about the types of services their children subscribe to.
At present, parents can set a limit on how long children can talk on their mobiles, but all the kids have to do is ask the mobile provider to increase the limit.
In February, a teenaged South Korean boy killed himself after tallying a phone bill of 3.7 million won ($4,017).
“The ministry hopes these regulations will prevent teenagers from making a lot of mistakes about how they use their mobile phones, which can lead to mounting bills,” the telecommunications ministry said in a press release.
How about parents just take the damn phone away from them if they are using it too much?
3:45 am on December 17th, 2006 1
Sounds like a good argument for pre-paid cell phones or cell phone plans.
12:25 pm on December 17th, 2006 2
That would be another way to handle it as well by only giving them a 20,000 won phone card a month or what not, but I just find it amazing parents have such hard time controlling their kids cell phone use.
2:29 am on December 18th, 2006 3
"How about parents just take the damn phone away from them if they are using it too much?"
It would work if fewer kids grew up to be irresponsible adults and parents. Wisdom, for some, does not come with age.