Cell firms to face huge fines

Johannesburg - Cellphone companies would be subjected to a R500 000 fine for poor network standards, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has said.

It follows a regulations document outlining minimum standards for end-user and subscriber service charters for service providers, which was printed in the Government Gazette earlier this month.

Regulations stipulate that electronic communications services (ECS) and electronic communications network service (ECNS) licensees must ensure they achieve an average of 95% network service availability, over a period of six months.

In addition, the percentage of connectivity failure rate must not exceed an average of 3% of all connections over a period of six months.

Regulations demanded that cellular communications firms had to maintain an average of a 90% fault clearance rate for all faults reported within three days, with the remaining 10% to be cleared within six days.

Moreover, companies should within seven days upon receipt of a request, notify and provide full reasons to qualifying service applicants where they were unable to provide service within the period, Icasa said.

Under the legislation, companies were also required to formally resolve all complaints from the complainants within 14 days of receipt thereof.

Icasa added that cellphone companies had to prepare and submit to it six-monthly reports on complaints received and processed.

According to Icasa, a license which is held to be non-compliant by the Complaints and Compliance Committee will be liable to a fine not exceeding: R500 000 for a contravention of regulation 4; R150 000 for a contravention of regulations 5 and 6; and additional R50 000 for every repeated offence.

The watchdog said the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Regulations 2009 would come into effect within 30 days from the date of publication in the Government Gazette (July 24).

- I-Net Bridge