Summary

  • Asia-Pacific administrations propose adding accessible, efficient, inclusive and transparent channels for service-related communication, complaints and redress to ITU Resolution 196.
  • Their draft also calls for support for vulnerable users facing telephone and Internet fraud. The 2022 resolution already covered transparent prices and service information; the complaint route is the new move.

A clear price list is a useful thing to have before a telecom contract. It offers little comfort when a service goes wrong and the route to a human answer disappears into a menu. Asia-Pacific administrations have put the second problem into addendum 18 to ITU contribution 79, posted by the Union on 21 October for the Doha plenipotentiary conference.

The draft invites Member States to encourage mechanisms for service-related communication, complaints and redress that are accessible, efficient, inclusive and transparent. It also says trustworthy service information needs practical complaint channels. That puts a second door beside disclosure: a customer who knows the tariff must be able to report a failure and reach a process capable of responding. The document sets no complaint-resolution deadline or performance target.

The proposal pays particular attention to people for whom that door can be hardest to use. It asks ITU-D to facilitate capacity-building for consumers, including vulnerable groups, and invites states to strengthen protection and digital skills against telephone and Internet fraud. The Development Bureau would press regulators to provide timely, accessible information on service characteristics, quality, security and prices, especially where emerging services complicate the offer. ITU-R would join ITU-D and ITU-T on relevant consumer-protection work within their mandates.

The 2022 Resolution 196 already required the Union to collect good practices and encouraged states to make tariff, roaming and service information free and current. Its preamble mentioned compensation in UN consumer guidelines, while its operative list stopped short of asking for a service complaint and redress mechanism. Asia-Pacific's change is small on the page and large in a help queue: the information duty finally gets an exit route.

Official sources