Federal Council regulates details on roaming and telephone advertising

On Friday, the Federal Council opened the consultation process for a package of ordinances on the Telecommunications Act. Telecommunications service providers are now obliged to protect their customers not only from unfair mass advertising, but also from unfair advertising.

This includes advertising calls from a number not registered in the telephone directory. Anyone who fails to note that a customer does not wish to receive an advertising message according to the note in the telephone directory is also engaging in unfair advertising. Finally, those who use data from such calls fall under the provision.

Various filter offers

In the future, customers should be able to obtain information about the callers from the provider. Providers are also required to offer customers at least two solutions: one that is managed by the provider and only needs to be activated or deactivated by the customer, and one that the customer must manage himself.

These can be two filter offers, for example, as the Federal Council writes in the explanatory report on the consultation. The solution, which is to be managed individually, also allows customers to block calls that may not be allowed to be blocked by providers because they are either noisy or do not fall under the relevant law at all.

Inform customers

Other changes relate to roaming. Parliament had given the Federal Council the option of combating disproportionately high retail rates and setting price caps.

The Federal Council primarily wants to oblige providers to inform customers. Normally, they receive the roaming information in the form of an SMS. If a customer cannot receive such an SMS, the provider must block access to the roaming services until the customer has reactivated it himself.

Set limit

At the latest when reactivating access to roaming services, customers must also be informed of the applicable prices and the place where they can check the applicable rates as well as the rate options available to them for price reductions.

Customers must also have the option of setting a limit on their roaming costs or choosing a corresponding tariff option. These measures are only mandatory if the costs for roaming services are higher than for similar usage in Switzerland.

Billing to the second

It is also planned that the mobile phone providers must bill to the second and kilobyte. The latest figures show that there is still a discrepancy between minutes billed and minutes actually consumed, the report says.

The principle that consumers only pay for the volumes they have actually used should apply to both data and calls. The final amount may be rounded up to the nearest 10 centimes.

Maximum 30 seconds rate

One exception is envisaged: if the Swiss mobile communications providers do not receive the data required for billing from their foreign partner companies to the exact second and kilobyte, they will not be able to charge their customers for the services as accurately. However, the providers must prove this on the basis of the data supplied.

Mobile operators are also allowed to set minimum costs for a call so that they can cover the costs incurred to establish a connection in any case. The minimum costs per call may not exceed the tariff for 30 seconds. This tariff structure corresponds to that of the EU and has proven itself, writes the Federal Council.

Do not hinder third-party providers

Furthermore, mobile network operators must not impede the use of roaming services from third-party providers abroad. If such an offer exists and a customer wants to use it, this must be possible in a simple manner.

In addition, there are new provisions on short numbers, emergency calls, and exceptions to the obligation of network neutrality. Interested parties have until March 25, 2020 to comment on the planned amendments to the ordinance. (SDA)