ICASA reconsiders minimum standards
ICASA (Independent Communications Authority of SA) has recently published regulations setting out the minimum standards for end user and subscriber service charters. The regulations were published in Government Gazette No. 30792 on February 25.
The regulator has however announced that “The Council of ICASA has resolved to reconsider the regulation for purposes of possible amendment. Interested parties may file written representations on or before date as per the ICASA Act.”
The purpose of the regulations is to prescribe minimum standards for end user and service charters for different types of services and they are applicable to all licensees.
Current regulations
The regulations require ECS and ECNS licensees to adhere to minimum standards for various issues, including availability and reliability of services, average install times, call failure rates, operator response times for helpdesks and resolving faults.
On the issue of availability and reliability ICASA states that, “All licensees must ensure that the service is available as specified in their licenses in 99.9% of their actual coverage.”
ICASA further requires that, “All ECNS and ECNS licensees must attain a 100% success rate within 14 days in meeting end user and subscriber requests for service, for qualifying en-user and subscribers.”
The regulations say that the percentage of connectivity or call failure rates must not exceed 2% of all connections or calls in a month, for all ECNS licensees.
One of the toughest regulations to abide by may be the required response time of call centres. The regulations state that, “The operator response time may not exceed 3 minutes for all operator assisted calls, directory enquiry services, call centres and other non-emergency services.”
It is further required that all licenses shall maintain an Electronic Communications Network Monitoring centre operating 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.
All electronic communications network licensees must maintain a fault report rate not exceeding 5%.
All electronic communications network service licensees must maintain a 100% Fault Clearance success rate for all reported end-user fault reports in urban areas within three working days.
50% of faults must be attended to within 1 day and 75% of reported faults must be attended to within 2 days.
In rural areas all electronic communications network service licensees must maintain a 100% Fault Clearance success rate for all reported end-user fault reports within four working days with 50% of faults attended to within 1 day and 75% of reported faults attended to within 2 days.
Apart from general operational issues the regulations require licensees to publish accurate and easy-to-understand information about their services and products, protect consumer confidentiality and clearly communicate billing issues.
The regulations also require clear complaint procedures from service providers and allows consumers to complain to the Authority in cases where their providers did not resolve their complaints in a satisfactory manner.
The reasons for reconsidering the reconsidering the regulations for possible amendment is not clear.
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