Report on Focussed Group Discussion on Broadband Labels

Transcription

1 Report on Focussed Group Discussion on Broadband Labels Bhopal, 25 th August 2017 Organised by NATIONAL CENTRE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENT E-5/A, Girish Kunj, Arera Colony, Bhopal 1

2 1. Back ground: During the last decade, India has witnessed tremendous growth in telecom sector, especially for broadband services. The competition within the sector has led to enhanced accessibility and affordability of internet services. However, the quality of broadband Services has remained a concern. Against this backdrop, Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International), an evidence based think-tank, working for consumers sovereignty, with support from Ford Foundation, India, had recently launched an initiative, entitled Consumer Broadband Labels: For Greater Transparency & Informed Consumers. Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT- D) is the technical partner for the initiative and enlists 10 regional partners, of which NCHSE is the state partner for Central India. The overall objective of the project is to create a network of stakeholders and to increase their long term capacity/awareness on broadband services and related issues. The project will also ascertain the need of a nutrition label for broadband service and advocate bringing about certain policy and practice changes, based on the gathered evidences. This will result in safeguarding consumers from misleading advertisements, unfair contractual terms, and practices of non-disclosures. The specific objectives are: Sensitise, educate and empower stakeholders including consumer groups, consumers, policy makers and internet service providers on issues pertaining to broadband services and need for a nutrition label. Promote visibility of best practices in this sector Develop a roadmap for adopting of nutrition label in India. CUTS International and IIT-Delhi had also released a joint study in 2016 titled Mobile Internet Services in India - Quality of Services (QoS). The study advocated for Quality of services (QoS) labels, which are readable, simple and incorporate a standard format. Such labels are envisaged to empower consumers with information, that can help them to make informed decisions on usage and purchase of broadband data services. The study recommended that: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) need to provide complete information to consumers on QoS in mobile internet services, at point of sale and on their websites. Strict rules should be imposed against misleading advertisements by ISPs and reported performance should be compared with advertised performance to understand discrepancies between promised and actual. There is an urgent need for adoption of a broadband label for ensuring that key information such as speed variations, service limits and conditions, pricing and other relevant information, would empower Indian consumers to compare broadband services in India and make an informed decision. 2

3 accordingly demand for better and quality services. Under the Consumer Broadband Label initiative, CUTS International in consultation with experts, IIT, Delhi and CSO partners, has developed capacity building courses and reading material, along with promotional material and an animated documentary. These are envisages to empower consumers on understanding the importance of broadband services, through capacity building, and 2. Focused Group Discussion: NCHSE organised the Focused Group Discussion (FGD) on Consumer Broadband Labels in Bhopal on 25th August The objectives of the FGD was to obtain feedback on the draft label designs prepared by IIT Delhi and CUTS International, from consumers, civil society, service providers and the regulator. The FGD also featured deliberation on the roadmap for adoption of broadband labels, which may enable consumers to make an informed decision on selection of Broadband Services. Dr. Pradip Nandi, Director General, NCHSE welcomed all the participants and informed the participants about the objective of the project and the role of CUTS International and NCHSE in the project implementation. Mr. Rohit Singh, Policy Analyst, CUTS International, presented the animated documentary to the participants. The documentary was followed by a presentation, both of which highlighted the common issues, the consumers face while using their broadband services and suggested broadband labels as a possible solution to allay such issues. It presented draft label designs and related the broadband labels to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency Star label and FSSAI Nutrition Label for packaged food products, which have been widely embraced by consumers and help them in making an informed choice. The presentation ended raising few pertinent questions on adoption of consumer broadband labels and also requesting feedback on the draft label designs. 3

4 Few of the participants expressed their concerns over the practicality of such labels, which were addressed by Mr. Singh. As a common consensus, on being asked if such labels may help them in making an informed choice, consumers favoured adoption of such labels. A few examples of common consumer complaints like weak infrastructure, volatility of wireless services, slow broadband speeds, frequent switching between 4G-3G-2G, etc. were also discussed. Quoting the example of an ambulance, Mr. Singh drew the relevance of broadband performance/quality being dependent on factors which go beyond speed, such as bandwidth and latency. He also apprised participants on the various challenges in gauging the precise quality of broadband services, especially for the wireless variant. Mr. Anwar Iqbal Khan, representing Reliance Communication Ltd., described the various challenges the service providers face which rendering broadband services to the consumers. He claimed that it is possible for the service providers to commit a minimum speed to consumers but committing average speed is practically not possible. He then delved into the issue of contention ratio and the inability of the service providers to strengthen the infrastructure, due to existing municipal/city level polices. 4

5 Mr. Denis Joseph from Idea Cellular Ltd also, also talked about a few challenges but conceded that the consumer issues need to be addressed by the service providers. Mr. Rakesh Tiwari, Deputy Advisor, TRAI Bhopal Regional Office, apprised the participants about the active role being played by TRAI, as a telecom regulator, in ensuring delivery of best possible and affordable services to the consumers. He also informed about the information that is available to the consumers through the TRAI website, MySpeed Application and Analytics Portal. He quoted that the service providers are grappling with numerous challenges, while he emphasising that they need to do more to ensure quality services to the consumers. He also said that TRAI is trying to make the grievances redressal system more effective. Mr. Tiwari appreciated the concept of labelling and said that it would help the consumers. He also suggested that the TRAI MySpeed app is also envisaged in the same direction, however, it would need more data from consumers to make it robust. He urged the participants to use the app more to make it more effective, as it is based on crowd sourcing. Of the draft designs, one was a qualitative version, which suggested quality of broadband services in star labelling format. The other was a quantitative version, where information was provided on the various technical parameters, contributing to the overall quality of services. Most of the participants opined that the qualitative version is more appropriate for consumers as it would not require prior knowledge of technical parameters. The FGD was attended by broadband service providers viz. Reliance Communications Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd & Airtel, consumers and consumer groups which included students, academicians, technocrats, representatives of CBOs and officials of CUTS and NCHSE. (List of participants is at-annex-1). Outcome: All participants appreciated the initiative of Broadband Labels. It emerged that: Consumers prefer a broadband label, which should be simple and easily understandable. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should commit on minimum guaranteed broadband speed or average speeds, and There is need for a common platform to discuss and resolve issues, inclusive of all the stakeholders, i.e. regulator, service providers, consumers and civil society. At the end of the program Mr. Avinash Shrivastava from NCHSE, thanked everyone for being a part of FGD. 5