ICP-ANACOM has an important role of market supervision and monitoring, which enables it to verify and enforce compliance with prevailing legislation which governs the sector, while at the same time creating conditions that improve its decision-making capacity and therefore, the efficiency of its performance.
This section of the report provides information on the activities undertaken in this area and on the measures taken to rectify detected irregularities, with the aim of improving the market's functioning, both in terms of relationships between operators, ensuring the existence of open and competitive markets, and also with a view to safeguarding the interests of consumers and citizens in general.
As such, the following pages outline the various measures undertaken in the area of supervision, including matters related to: (i) complaints; (ii) inspection of operators and service providers, of infrastructure and of equipment; (iii) monitoring and control of the spectrum, as well as overseeing compliance with the obligations to which operators are bound, both in terms of licenses and in terms of information disclosure; (iv) breach proceedings; (v) resolution of conflicts between operators/providers; (vi) and monitoring of the market, including through studies - on quality of service, postal sector liberalization, enquiries and reports on the process of transition to digital television.
With regard to complaints, statistics on the use of complaint books1 show that, at a national level, the electronic communications sector has one of the higher levels of conflict. This circumstance stems from: a significant presence of service provider establishments among the population; the existence of a huge variety of retail offers of electronic communication products and services; and the multiplicity of technologies over which services are provided and which evolve very rapidly. Furthermore, users are becoming increasingly aware about their rights and available means of recourse.
In many cases, users complain to ICP-ANACOM thinking that the regulator is able to resolve their dispute with the service provider when, by law, ICP-ANACOM is unable to intervene directly in these conflicts and may not impose any obligations on service providers in respect of specific users. In most cases, ICP-ANACOM's role is informative - providing users with information on its powers and responsibilities, on acquiring and using services and on the avenues available to users seeking to resolve conflicts. However, whenever evidence of irregularities is detected in the analysis of a complaint, ICP-ANACOM may investigate and sanction the behaviour in question and where there is good reason, adopt regulatory measures to prevent its occurrence.
Accordingly, complaints provide ICP-ANACOM with an important tool for detecting market information needs as well as providing evidence that irregularities may be occurring. In such cases, inspection and enforcement actions are engaged to ascertain whether the situations described in the complaints constitute situations of non-compliance, and where appropriate instigate infringement proceedings.
In addition to enforcement actions, the regulator also carries out oversight actions at a distance, as another way of monitoring operator behaviour, specifically, when it comes to verifying the information provided by operators on their websites, for example, or compiling surveys or requesting information from operators, which is then analysed.
These actions are carried out directly where on-the-spot inspections are performed or where mystery shoppers are used, and indirectly when analysis is made of information received from operators or contained on their websites.
Investigations carried out by ICP-ANACOM cover a wide range of issues, ranging from the electronic communications sector to the information society, and encompassing the postal sector, spectrum, equipment, and installation of telecommunications infrastructure in buildings and in urban settlements.
In all these areas, ICP-ANACOM carried out more than 2,500 inspections in 2011 covering market and equipment inspections, monitoring and control of the spectrum, and verifications of compliance with the rules governing Infraestruturas de telecomunicações em edifícios (ITED) (Telecommunications infrastructure in buildings) and Infraestruturas de telecomunicações em loteamentos, urbanizações e conjuntos de edifícios (ITUR) (Infrastructures for telecommunications in housing developments, urban settlements and concentrations of buildings).
ICP-ANACOM's market inspection actions also focused on overseeing the process of migration to DTT, totalling 123 actions (in addition to the 170 monitoring actions undertaken to conduct signal verification), and 230 inspections involving number portability anomalies.
1 Information available at: Portal do Cidadãohttp://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/GC17/Governo/Ministerios/MEI/Documentos/Pages/20090312_MEI_Doc_Livro_Reclamacoes.aspx and
- 6.1. Trends in complaints https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347742
- 6.2. Results of analysis of complaint records https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347750
- 6.3. Inspection and laboratory activities https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347751
- 6.4. Monitoring activity https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347752
- 6.5. Orders, recommendations and clarifications https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347753
- 6.6. Litigation and offences https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347754
- 6.7. Resolving conflicts between operators https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347756
- 6.8. Market monitoring - studies conducted https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=347757
