In 2007, ANACOM - Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações received 24,745 written complaints, an increase of 43% over the 17,296 complaints received in the previous year. This sharp rise in the number of complaints received was driven by the increase in the volume of complaints entered in complaint books, received pursuant to DL 156/2005 of 15 September together with a rise in the number of complaints connected to pre-selection, due to the extended delay in the deactivation of this functionality by certain service providers.
In 2007, complaints entered in complaints books represented around 68% of the total number of complaints received by the sectoral regulator.
Besides complaints, ANACOM also received a further 575 requests for information, 79 petitions, 16 suggestions and 59 communications of other types, from a total of 27,745 requests.
Of the total number of complaints received, the electronic communications sector was the sector that gave rise to the most complaints. Both with respect to complaints addressed directly to ANACOM (7,646 of a total of 7,984), and with respect to complaints entered in complaint books (10,761 of a total of 16,761). After the electronic communications sector, it was the postal sector that give rise to most complaints, with 6,106 complains, up 46.9% over the previous year.
With respect to the electronic communications sector, the Internet access service, the telephone service at a fixed location and the cable television distribution service and the mobile service were among those services that gave rise to the most complaints.
With respect to the issues underlying the complaints, within the electronic communications sector, it was seen, with respect to complaint books, that there was prevalence of issues related to equipment, technical support and customer service and billing. With regard to complaints addressed directly to this Authority, the issue giving rise to most complaints was pre-selection, followed by billing, contracts and technical support.
With regard to the postal sector, the greatest number of complaints referred to the correspondence service, whereas, with respect to complaints addressed directly to this Authority, the situations giving rise to the largest number of complaints were connected to delays in delivery, loss and undue return of mail, while, in complaint books, the large majority of the situations giving rise to complaint were associated with customer service problems.
The requests for information received by ANACOM during the past year were mostly connected to the electronic communications sector and to services of the information society.
With respect to requests received by the services of ANACOM's public attendance, 7,644 requests were registered, of which 7,272 corresponded to complaints and the remaining 372 to requests for information.
