South Korea’s three major operators have been asked to play fair and refrain from engaging in cut-throat competition, after the government scrapped a handset subsidy cap earlier this week.

Korea Communications Commission chief Lee Hyo-seong met with CEOs of major operators KT, SKT and LG Uplus following the decision to end a handset cap of KRW330,000 ($295) from the end of this month.

The cap had been in place for three years.

However, the decision to ditch the limit led to concerns the operators could now offer consumers excessive subsidies in a bid to snare market share from each other.

In comments cited by The Korea Times, Lee urged the CEOs to compete on pricing and service quality, instead of finding ways to unfairly attract each other’s subscribers.

“The telecom industry should avoid the self-devouring cut-throat marketing competition that disrupted the market order in the past,” he said.

In his meeting with the CEOs, Lee also urged the companies to seek mutual benefits with smaller market players, and in particular the country’s budget carriers.

He said the larger players needed to “break from the conventional superior subordinate relations” with those budget player and smaller handset retailers to find new ways to prosper.

The report said smaller and budget mobile carriers have seen a significant loss in subscribers in recent months, with the larger players widening the gap.