«This information aims to enable consumers to determine how the service is charged and billed.
For this purpose, the following tariff information must be published and disclosed:
ii) Type and levels of tariffs applicable to the service provision concerned, including the mobile Internet access service on national territory and while roaming;
ii) Minimum service cost, where it does not correspond to the price set for the established charging unit;
iii) Tariff charged for installing, reinstalling and uninstalling services concerned (breaking down tariffs for restoring former conditions), where appropriate;
iv) Minimum consumption, where appropriate;
v) Maintenance fees, where appropriate;
vi) Equipment renting prices, where appropriate;
vii) Discount and credit conditions;
viii) Peak versus off-peak hours, where appropriate;
ix) Prices per period;
x) Information on whether tariffs are pre-paid or post-paid and whether there are any associated traffic limits;
xi) Disclosure of technical consumption-control means available to users (including for offers concerning the use of Internet access service while roaming), regardless of the criteria used to bill the service, if any, as well as of information on how to enable and disable this feature;
xii) Information on “Fair Use Policy”/ “Acceptable Use Policy”, where appropriate, in particular on their content and means to access this information; and
xiii) Specifically in the scope of the Internet access service:
- Contracted amount of data sent and received, in case this is the criterion used to bill the service;
- Where the service is billed on the basis of the distinction between national and international traffic, information of the technical means available to the user, if any, to acknowledge beforehand and online the type of traffic (national or international) associated to the addresses intended at any given time to be accessed; and
- Disclosure of the respective traffic management policies, if any, restricting the use of the Internet access service, when subscribing an unlimited traffic tariff (including happy hours).
It is recommended that service providers make available simulators, at the respective websites and points of sale, allowing the different tariff plans they provide to be compared.»
DECO restates relatively to this point of the draft decision submitted to consultation the comments made on point c) of section A, as regards the inclusion of information on the collection, per municipality, of the MFRW, as well as the obligation to provide information on the existence of minimum consumption.
On the requirement to disclose information on conditions for granting credit to clients [vii)] PT mentions that it is not possible to publish these criteria in an objective form in a pre-contract stage, as reality may not be reflected.
PT adds that the imposition of an obligation to disclose this information largely exceeds legal sector provisions, as from ECL (point d) of paragraph 2 of article 47) it derives only that companies are bound to publish information on compensation and refund schemes, and that this rule of the ECL applies only to the offer of publicly available telephone networks and services. Without excluding the possibility of an analogue application of article 47 of ECL to other electronic communications services, PT considers that ANACOM must not apply analogy to impose an obligation to a wider extent that that provided for relatively to analogous cases. On these grounds, PT considers that the obligation to provide information on credit conditions should be removed.
ANACOM's position
Arguments made above to respond to DECO as regards MFRW and minimum consumption apply here as well.
As far as PT's observations are concerned, it is clarified that the requirement to disclose credit conditions is already covered by the version currently in force of the determination on the object and form of public disclosure of conditions of provision and use of electronic communication services.
These conditions concern the conditions established for standard offers, as that is the scope defined for this decision. In the scope of standard offers, there are some offers, mostly made available by mobile operators, that provide for the granting of credit, especially in the case of pre-paid services. These standard conditions, as well as analogous ones which may be provided for other services, must be disclosed under the terms already in force, integrating information on prices of services, as provided for in point c) of paragraph 2 of article 47.
In line with the amendment to point c) of section A, to this point also must be added the obligation to inform that «the offer of publicly available electronic communications networks and services at a fixed location may give rise to the payment of a MFRW. Interested parties are requested to check, at their municipality of residence, if this fee applies and how much it amounts to.»
As regards the disclosure of the information on fair use policy/acceptable use policy and on traffic management policies [xii)], Vodafone stresses that where the operator decides to apply speed-restricting measures, given their impact on the client, such measures should be included in a clear and transparent manner in the commercial conditions of the selected tariff. To ensure comprehensive, detailed and transparent information, commercial conditions should also refer the maximum contracted speeds and limits of use as from which those restrictions apply.
ANACOM's position
As Vodafone points out, ANACOM also deems it important to disclose, before the contract is concluded, information on fair use policy. That is why this requirement is now included in the list of information on provision and use of services.
FENACOOP welcomes the fact that the draft decision submitted to consultation expressly provides for the cases where the billing is based on the distinction between national and international traffic, and for the duty to provide the consumer with technical means to acknowledge beforehand and online the type of traffic being used, thus allowing a better control of its consumption.
As regards the obligation to make available information on the technical means available to the user to acknowledge beforehand and online if national or international traffic is being used [xiii)], APRITEL and PT refer that it is not possible to ensure this distinction as clients' traffic originates from various sources which the ISP cannot control. Relatively to this requirement, Vodafone adds that although in the past there was a different tariff according to the internet traffic, that distinction does not occur any more, thus the breakdown is not justified.
ANACOM's position
First of all, it must be referred that the requirement to provide information on the existence of technical means available to the user to acknowledge online the type of traffic associated to the addresses intended at any given time to be accessed applies only where the tariff of the internet access services is based on the distinction between the two types of traffic, as is still the case with some services.
Furthermore, there are some tools which very easily and with a considerable degree of reliability are able to identify the location of the resolved domain, vd. for example http://www.spambutcher.com/ipcountrylookup.htmlhttp://www.spambutcher.com/ipcountrylookup.html.
These tools have databases that resort to RIPE to locate the origin of addresses http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/db/toolshttp://www.ripe.net/data-tools/db/tools.
