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ANCOM: Mobile Telephony, the Most Complained About in 2015

3.02.2016

 

In 2015, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) received and settled more than 2,000 complaints from the electronic communications users in Romania, by 19% more than in 2014. Almost half of the complaints referred to mobile telephony services, registering a slight growth compared to the previous year (+5%), as revealed by the most recent ANCOM statistics which show that, by mid-2015, the Romanians used 22.7 million active SIM cards (prepaid and subscription-based).
Out of all the electronic communications service categories (telephony, internet and audio-visual programme retransmission services), the most numerous complaints received by ANCOM in 2015 concerned (44%), followed by fixed internet access services (11%) and audio-visual programme retransmission services (9%). The data consolidated by ANCOM for the year 2015 indicate that most of the users’ complaints referred to the electronic communications services provided by RCS&RDS (15%), Telekom Romania Mobile Communications (12%), Vodafone Romania (11%), Orange Romania (10%) and Telekom Romania Communications (10%).
In 2015, the Romanian users kept complaining about the contract relationship with their electronic communications networks providers (40% of all the complaints received by ANCOM). The users complained about aspects of this relationship such as the contract execution, extension and early termination or the providers’ failure to include certain minimum obligatory clauses in their contracts, as well as the fact that the providers did not answer the users’ complaints or early termination requests. For example, upon receiving complaints regarding mobile telephony tariffs, ANCOM found that contracts concluded with the respective users did not provide clear information on the consumption modality and the charging method for the international minutes included in subscriptions – for international call tariff plans -, and the Authority’s investigation led to amending the standard contract used by most mobile telephony operators by including complete information on the networks where the included minutes may be used or where the user may benefit from preferential tariffs or, as appropriate, by indicating the networks where calls do not involve the included national minutes.
The quality of electronic communications and postal services is a topic raised more and more often with ANCOM, due to the users’ higher expectations, therefore the complaints received by the Authority during 2015 on this issue are more than 2.5 times more numerous than the ones received in 2014 and amounted to 35% of all the complaints registered with ANCOM. Other problems referred to in the users’ complaints in 2015 include misunderstandings regarding service billing (9% of all the complaints), number portability (7%) or technical problems encountered in the provision of electronic communications services (6%).

 

ANCOM may have a direct intervention only where the providers (of telephony, internet or television services) breach the users’ information rights, do not offer the number portability service, do not include certain details in the contract or do not observe the specific legislation in the electronic communications and postal services field. Residential users must direct their complaints regarding failure to observe the contract conditions to ANPC – the National Authority for Consumer Protection, the institution that is entitled to take action in such situations.  Business users deeming that their contract provisions are not observed may take their complaint to court. Further details are available in the InfoCentre section on ANCOM’s website.Â