The pressue stems from a move by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to extend its powers concerning mobile service contracts.
The Ombudsman, John Pinnock announced yesterday the TIO had approved changes to its constitution that would allow it to act against carriers on behalf of mobile phone users if the handset bundled with their mobile service contracts were faulty.
In such cases, the TIO now has the power to direct carriers to give customers a rebate on their monthly access fees pro-rated to any period in which the customer is unable access its network.
"We've always thought it unfair that [a carrier] could say to a customer 'we're sending you a bundled contract, but even if the handset's faulty' -- and some of these handsets have bad fault rates -- 'and its away for repair, we're going to continue to charge you the monthly access fee'," Pinnock said.
According to Pinnock the extension of the jurisdiction, which came into effect late in September, is the result of two years of negotiations with mobile service providers to accept the changes.
The TIO began arguing that it had jurisdiction to investigate complaints regarding faulty bundled handsets late in 1999. However most carriers challenged the regulators' position, said Pinnock.
Carriers argued that even in instances that mobile phone dealers act as their agents the agreement consumers enter to purchase a handset is legally isolated from the one they enter for mobile service.
Outlining its previous position in November 1999, the TIO said consumers would not necessarily be aware that they are effectively involved in separate deals.
"We've now got the power to tell them to [give rebates], where as in the past some of them might have done it with a bad grace and most of them wouldn't at all," said Pinnock.
He predicts that carriers will now make moves to make the rebate an automatic entitlement, arguing it would not be economically prudent for them to do otherwise.
"[Carriers] know that in order to exercise the power to direct them we'd have to escalate that complaint to a level 3 which would straight off cost them AU$400," said Pinnock.
According to the TIO's newly-released 2002 annual report, enquiries regarding faulty handsets dominated the 1,550 mobile-related complaints received throughout the year, well ahead of those concerning mobile coverage.
"In the long term, the issue of bundling of services and access devices may prove to be one of great importance to consumers and the TIO," Pinnock said in the report.
How about rebates for faulty signals??
Telstra claims to have 97% of the population convered, but the signal quality is shocking. I had to spend costly mobile minutes repeating myself because of the phone translating my words into dalek speak.
I moved to Vodaphone and the amount of time i spent on my calls dropped from an average of 4 minutes, to 1.5 minutes.
Same phone, different provider.