*****************************************************
Following is a question by the Hon Albert Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in the Legislative Council today (March 8)
Question:
Some members of the public have complained to me that, after their applications for changing the telecommunications service providers had been accepted and their original telecommunications services contract terminated, they were denied the services by the relevant telecommunications service providers on the ground that their telecommunications networks could not be rolled out in the applicants' housing estates, and they were given no compensation for the inconvenience and loss so caused. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of complaints similar to those mentioned above received by the authorities from members of the public in each of the past three years and, among them, the number of cases in which there was no compensation from the relevant telecommunications service providers, as well as the reasons for the providers declining to compensate them; and
(b) whether there are any punitive provisions to prevent telecommunications service providers from accepting applications for the provision of telecommunications services in the areas where they are not able to roll out their telecommunications networks; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
At present, while some fixed network telecommunications service providers have already rolled out their networks into the boundary of a housing estate or the common telecommunications equipment room of a building, because of "bottleneck" problems or other technical reasons, they may need to lease some in-building blockwiring leading into individual units from the owner of the blockwiring system (usually another telecommunications service provider, the Incorporated Owners of the building or the property developer) in order to provide service to customers. If the blockwiring system does not have any blockwiring for serving an applicant's unit available for lease, the concerned telecommunications service provider will not be able to provide services to that applicant. However, under normal circumstances, that telecommunications service provider would cancel the application so that the applicant can continue to be served without interruption at the same address by his original telecommunications service provider. If his telecommunications service is inadvertently terminated because of a procedural error by a telecommunications service provider, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) will intervene and liaise with the relevant telecommunications service operators to resume service to the applicant using his original telephone number.
(a) In 2003, 2004 and 2005, OFTA handled 8, 1 and 2 consumer complaints respectively concerning failures to obtain services on the expected date from specific telecommunications service providers because of the above issues. Among those complaints, in 4 cases in 2003 and 1 in 2005, the concerned telecommunications service providers ultimately could not provide services to the applicants. There was no such case in 2004. OFTA understood that the telecommunications service providers had cancelled the applications unconditionally as they were unable to provide services to the applicants. OFTA does not have any information on whether any compensation had been paid to the applicants because OFTA was not involved in such discussions between the parties.
(b) Under section 7M of the Telecommunications Ordinance (TO), a telecommunications licensee shall not engage in conduct which is misleading or deceptive in providing or acquiring telecommunications networks, systems, installations, customer equipment or services. If a licensee is found to have committed a breach against section 7M, the Telecommunications Authority may impose on the licensee various penalties, including financial penalty, disclosure of the case to the public, publication of corrective notices by the licensee, and issue of warnings. Under section 36C of the TO, the maximum amount of financial penalty is $200,000 for the first breach, rising to $1,000,000 for subsequent breaches.
Ends/Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:12
NNNN
