National Council committee wants to take action against roaming tariffs and advertising calls
The National Council's Committee on Transport and Telecommunications (KVF) intends to take action against high roaming rates and unsolicited sales calls. It has adopted parliamentary initiatives on these issues.
The details are to be regulated as part of the revision of the Telecommunications Act. The committee requested the Council to approve the bill by 18 votes to 6, as reported by the parliamentary services on Tuesday. The majority of the KVF is of the opinion that the law must be adapted to technological developments. It will decide on the details in March.
The Federal Council also wants to take action against disproportionately high tariffs for accessing a mobile network abroad. The law could oblige mobile phone providers to allow their customers abroad to use roaming services from third-party providers and to offer them packages with roaming services at fixed prices.
It could also set price caps based on international agreements. And it could issue regulations on billing modalities - for example, require calls to be billed by the second.
Measures against advertising calls
The Federal Council also wants to oblige telecoms companies to combat unfair advertising. They should enable their customers to filter out advertising calls - such as spam e-mails. They should also ensure and monitor that numbers from blocks that they pass on abroad are not used for unfair advertising.
Other rules concern access to connections. The Federal Council has dispensed with a net neutrality obligation: it does not want to require companies to treat data and content on the internet equally. However, companies should have to inform customers and authorities if they treat data differently during transmission.
Finally, companies are to be obliged to take measures to defend themselves against cyber attacks. The general reporting obligation for telecommunications service providers is to be dropped. (SDA)
