The Korea Communications Commission imposed additional fines amounting up to 5.3 billion won ($4.77 million) on the country’s three telecoms for providing excessive and illegal smartphone subsidies despite its previous punishments.

The state telecom regulator said that it will have SK Telecom pay up another 3.14 billion won and also granted fees of 1.61 billion won and 560 million won to KT and LG Uplus, respectively.

“It’s a real shame that the market spiced up immediately after we impose strict measures on the mobile carriers,” said Kim Dae-hee, a commissioner at the five-member KCC, during a general meeting.

The nation’s three telecoms have been giving out excessive subsidies over the past few months even after the KCC took a strong stance against the offering of massive subsidies earlier in January.

For the first time ever, the mobile carriers were simultaneously given business suspensions as well as fines, which dealt a blow to their businesses. The three took turns in business suspensions with it completely ending on Wednesday.

SKT said that the company feels responsible for taking part in the fierce smartphone subsidy competition, in a statement released soon after the announcement. However, it also noted its frustration in SKT being picked as the firm to lead the competition.

“While expressing our regrets about the additional fines, we hope that the local telecom market itself refrains from the subsidy war and make the transition into a competition involving customer-oriented services with the government’s measures,” it said.

In January, the KCC fined the three telecoms a total of about 11.9 billion won, adding to business suspensions that ran Jan. 7-March 13.

The current law states that smartphone subsidies must not exceed 270,000 won. But the price of a nearly 1 million won Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone plunged as low as 170,000 won following 800,000 won in subsidies.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)