this project is funded by the european union consumer aspects in telecoms regulation peter lundy msc...
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This project is funded by the European Union
Consumer aspects in telecoms regulation
Peter Lundy MSc DIC BSc(Eng) Information and Communications Technology consultant
November 2008
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This project is funded by the European Union
Overview
• End user rights in the telecoms legislation• Contract law• Data protection• European legislation on distance contracts,
e-commerce and unfair commercial practices
• Roles of the telecom regulators
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This project is funded by the European Union
Before liberalisation
• Before liberalisation, providing telecommunications services was a task of the state
• Providing good quality for low price under fair conditions was therefore also a task of the state– but it did not work very well
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This project is funded by the European Union
First steps of liberalisation
• In a licensing regime, end user rights are often ensured by the licences
• Providing good quality for low price is sometimes a criterion for licencing, for example in beauty contests
• Fair conditions are often ensured by licence conditions
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This project is funded by the European Union
Fully liberalised market
• Instead of detailed requirements on quality and price, the state only requires transparency: providers must publish information that consumers can compare
• Unfair business methods remain forbidden and the institutional framework against them is strengthened
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• Which types of consumer complaints are reported to;– Operators?– Regulators?– Consumer and business associations?– Other bodies?
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This project is funded by the European Union
Examples of consumer problems
• Prices, how to find cheap services• Unsolicited calls• Mis-selling, changing the operator
without consent• Premium rate services, surprisingly
high bills, unsubscrubing from premium rate services text messages
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This project is funded by the European Union
Terminology
• Legal definitions (art. 2 Framework Directive)– User: who uses or requests a service
(including providers)– End-user: not including providers– Subscriber: who has the contract– Consumer: who does not use the service
for his trade, business or profession
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• Telephones used in a family: who is user, who is subscriber?
• Internet access by a company: who is user, who is subscriber?
• Is a prepaid customer a subscriber?• Is a small („one man“) enterprise a
consumer?
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This project is funded by the European Union
Affordability of tariffs
• Art. 9 Universal Service Directive• No precise definition of „affordable“,
reference to „national consumer prices and income“
• Member states may;– require special tariffs for users with low
income or special social needs– require geographical averaging
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This project is funded by the European Union
Control of expenditure (1)
• Art. 10 and Annex I Part A Universal Service Directive;– Itemised billing– Selective call barring– Pre-payment systems– Phased payment of connection fees– Non-payment of bills
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This project is funded by the European Union
Control of expenditure (2)
• These are obligations for designated universal service providers
• But in many Member States some of these obligations apply to a larger group of operators, e.g. all providers of publicly accessible telephone services (PATS)
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This project is funded by the European Union
Itemised billing
• NRAs must be able to specify a basic level of detail that allows consumers to verify and control the charges and exercise a reasonable degree of control;– in practice: one line per call
• Basic level of detail must be free of charge
• Free calls, including calls to helplines, not to be identified in the itemised bill
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This project is funded by the European Union
Selective call barring
• Must be provided free of charge• Subscriber must be able to bar
outgoing calls of defined types or to defined types of numbers
• Directive does not specify details• Typical options: calls to value added
service numbers, in mobile networks also; roaming related call barring
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This project is funded by the European Union
Pre-payment systems, phased payment
• NRA must be able to require designated universal service providers to offer pre-payment systems
• NRA must be able to require designated universal service providers to allow consumers to pay the connection fee phased over time
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This project is funded by the European Union
Non-payment of bills
• Proportionate, non-discriminatory and published measures
• Due warning must be given before interruption or disconnection
• Service interruption only for the service concerned (exceptions: fraud, persistent late payment or non-payment)
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This project is funded by the European Union
Contracts
• Art. 20 Universal Service Directive• Minimum content of contracts;– Applies to consumers, but member
states may extend the scope to all subscribers
• Subscribers can withdraw from contracts, if the provider changes the conditions
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This project is funded by the European Union
Transparency
• Art. 21 and Annex II Universal Service Directive
• Minimum information that must be published by providers, including contractual conditions, tariffs, compensation policy, maintenance, dispute settlement mechanisms
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This project is funded by the European Union
Operator assistance, directories
• Subscribers have a right to have an entry in the comprehensive directory
• Subscribers must be able to call operator assistance services and directory enquiry services
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This project is funded by the European Union
Numbering issues
• European emergency call number 112
• Standard international access code 00
• Non-geographic numbers accessible from other member states
• Tone-dialling, calling line identification (CLI)
• Number portability20
This project is funded by the European Union
Out-of-court dispute resolution
• Member states must ensure transparent, simple and inexpensive out-of-court procedures
• Details left to the member state to decide, but many member states assign such tasks to the NRA
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This project is funded by the European Union
Contracts
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This project is funded by the European Union
Introduction
• In the times of the monopoly, the legal relation between phone users and the operator was the relation between a citizen and a public authority
• In an liberalised environment, this changed to a contractual relation between a subscriber and a service provider
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• You go to a shop and buy a pre-paid SIM-Card.
• With whom do you conclude a contract?
• What is the content of this contract?
2007-02-09
This project is funded by the European Union
In practice
• Almost every kind of commercial activity is based on contracts
• Most of these contracts are not concluded written form
• It most cases it would not be possible to determine all details of the contract
• In most cases it would be difficult to enforce the contract in case of a dispute
2007-02-09
This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• How can a company change its existing long-term contracts, for example the monthly price?
2007-02-09
This project is funded by the European Union
Data protection / Privacy
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This project is funded by the European Union
EU legislation
• Directive 95/46/EC: General data protection directive– scope: all personal data, all „controllers“
who process personal data
• Directive 2002/58/EC: Privacy in electronic communications– scope: subscribers, users, providers of
electronic communications networks and services
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 95/46/EC
• Art. 6 Principles relating to data quality– Personal data must be collected for a
certain, legitimate purpose, and most not be processed contrary to that purpose
– Personal data must be kept up to date, and must be deleted when no longer needed for the purpose
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 95/46/EC
• Art. 7 Criteria for making processing legitimate– consent by the data subject– processing necessary to fulfil a contract– processing necessary to fulfil a legal
obligation– task carried out in the public interest– ...
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 95/46/EC
• Rights of data subjects– Right to be informed about processing
personal data– Right to object– Right to access own personal data– Right of rectification or deletion
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 2002/58/EC
• Confidentiality of communications• Strict rules on processing traffic data:
delete as soon as possible• Itemised bill shall protect interests of
other calling users (who are not the subscriber) or called users
• Rules how users can restrict CLI
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 2002/58/EC
• Rules on processing location data: consent needed
• Directories: subscribers must have the possibility to decide whether they want be included– but no clear opt-in or opt-out principle
• Rules against unsolicited messages (automated calling systems, spam)
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This project is funded by the European Union
Data retention
• Directive 2006/24/EC• Turns the principle that personal data
shall be deleted as soon as possible upside down
• Providers shall store telephony data and Internet data (but not the transmitted content) for 6 months to 2 years, for law enforcement purposes
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This project is funded by the European Union
Distance contracts, electronic commerce, ...
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This project is funded by the European Union
EU legislation
• Distance Contracts Directive 97/7/EC• Distance marketing of consumer
financial services, Directive 2002/65/EC
• E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC• Unfair Commercial Practices
Directive 2005/29/EC
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 97/7/EC
• Distance contract: wide definition, includes selling per telephone, mail-order catalogues, websites, ...
• Detailed information requirements, in particular identity of the supplier, price, delivery costs, ...
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This project is funded by the European Union
Directive 97/7/EC
• Right of withdrawal– consumer can withdraw without stating
any reason– without penalty or charge (only delivery
costs for returning)– within 7 working days (financial
services: 14 or 30 days)– some exceptions
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• What does this mean in practice?– for selling telephone services via call
centres or websites?– for provision of value added services?
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This project is funded by the European Union
E-Commerce Directive
• Information obligations• Rules how to conclude a contract via
websites and email– technical steps must be explained, a
possibility to correct errors must be given, possibility to store the contract
• Rules on advertising
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This project is funded by the European Union
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive
• Forbids misleading and aggressive commercial practices– abstract definition in articles 5 to 9–many concrete examples in annex 1
(same list applies in all member states)
• Applies to business-to-consumer relationship
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• Do you know examples of misleading or aggressive commercial practices in the telecoms sector?
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This project is funded by the European Union
The role of Telecom regulators in consumer
protection
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This project is funded by the European Union
Transparency
• Publication of general business conditions
• Publication of tariffs• Tariff calculator on the website– requires lot of timely updates and
programming in order to take new tariff options into account
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This project is funded by the European Union
Public relations
• Reacting to consumer issues in individual press releases
• Annual report• Information on consumers‘ issues on
the regulator‘s website– on most regulators‘ websites, this is one
of the first items in the navigation
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This project is funded by the European Union
Quality of service
• Possibility to regulate it, if necessary• Trend, not to require certain level of
QoS, but only to require transparency
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This project is funded by the European Union
General business conditions
• A regulator can enforce the rules– from the telecoms acquis, for example
minimum content– from other parts of legislation, e.g.
unfair clauses
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This project is funded by the European Union
General business conditions
• Methods of enforcement–Misdemeanour provisions• only in serious cases
– Obliging operators to change business conditions• in cases of complaint• evaluation of all general business conditions
as a regular activity
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This project is funded by the European Union
Consumer complaints
• Out-of-court dispute settlement on case-by-case basis– task of many EU regulators
and/or• dealing with consumer issues on a
more general level– for example the Ofcom Consumer Panel
explicitly states that it does not deal with individual complaints
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This project is funded by the European Union
Expertise
• Provision of expertise to consumer protection institutions, in individual cases
• Regular exchange of information with such institutions
• Staff of the regulator acts as court experts
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This project is funded by the European Union
Discussion
• Which consumer protection activities do your regulators currently perform?
• Cooperation between regulators and consumer protection institutions?
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