Information on outages in electronic communications - PTS-ER-2004:25
24/06/2004
The National Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) has been assigned by the Government to propose measures on how information on outages in electronic communications can be disseminated to organisations and the general public.
PTS has conducted interviews with major service providers within the fields of fixed telecom, mobile telecom and Internet. The issues discussed with the service providers were: causes of outages, frequency of outages, routines for disseminating information on outages, and the providers’ thoughts on additional measures that can be taken to disseminate such information.
Consumer complaints on the dissemination of information on outages are few. Most service providers have routines for disseminating information on outages. There are market incentives for disseminating such information. PTS also assess that the frequency of outages in electronic communications is low.
An important principle for PTS is that the agency shall take as few and minor measures as possible when intervening in market activities. PTS concludes that since the status of dissemination of information on outages is satisfactory, there are no grounds for intervening in service provider activities.
PTS proposes that the agency takes the following measures:
- The consumer guidance at PTS should include to inforrm consumers on the providers dissemination of information on outages,
- PTS should make available points of contacts at the service providers for collecting information on outages.