providing quality of service (“qos”) information to...
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Providing Quality of Service (“QoS”) Information to Consumers of
Residential Broadband Internet Access Services
Statement of the Telecommunications Authority
31 January 2005
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With all sectors of the telecommunications industry in Hong Kong
liberalised and open to competition, consumers and businesses can now enjoy
the outcome of market liberalisation and competition: more choices of service
providers, a wide range of innovative services as well as competitive prices.
In such a competitive market, service providers are expected to compete on
both price and quality. Service providers failing to meet consumers’
requirements or expectations in price or service quality would be forced out of
market. However, to get the full benefit of competition, consumers need to be
well informed, particularly on the non-price aspects of the service to be
provided, for example, QoS of different service providers in the market. To
enable consumers to make better-informed purchasing decisions, the
Telecommunications Authority (“TA”) has issued a public consultation paper
on 23 July 2004 (“Consultation Paper”) to propose a framework for providing
QoS information to consumers whereby the QoS of service providers in the
market will be measured, reported and published, based on definitions and
measurement methodology uniformly applied across the industry. The QoS
framework would first focus on the residential broadband Internet access
service market.
2. The objective of the QoS framework is to increase the transparency
of the QoS in the broadband Internet access service market. A significant
number of complaints received by OFTA are attributable to the
lower-than-expected performance, or misunderstanding of the QoS pledges, of
service providers. Furthermore, customers are usually bound by fixed-term
contracts. Even if a customer finds the service quality unsatisfactory or
different from expectations during the commitment period, many of them
would have to continue to subscribe to the service reluctantly to avoid losses
resulted from penalty charges. One of the effective ways to address
consumers’ concerns is to enhance the transparency of QoS and service
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information of different service providers in the market so that consumers have
sufficient comparable QoS and service information for making informed
choices. It is hoped that with ready access to information on the non-price
aspects of the various competitive residential broadband services on offer in the
market, market forces can work effectively and QoS can be upheld. Under the
framework, QoS information (based on both technical and service performance
indicators) as well as service information (i.e. helpline numbers, information of
billing and service termination) of the residential broadband Internet access
service providers will be made available to the public. The scheme will not
set any minimum service standards for the service providers because consistent
with the light-handed regulatory philosophy that he has all along adopted, the
TA considers that the service standards in a competitive market should be
determined by the market itself.
3. All stakeholders (including the industry, consumer interest groups,
end users and the public) have been invited to comment on all aspects of the
proposal put forward in the Consultation Paper. By the closing of the
consultation period, the TA received a total of thirteen submissions from the
following respondents:
� China Resources Peoples Telephone Company Limited
(“Peoples”)
� Consumer Council (“CC”)
� Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (“HKBN”)
� Hong Kong Telecommunications Users Group (“HKTUG”)
� Hutchison Global Communications Limited (“HGC”)
� i-Cable WebServe Limited (“i-Cable”)
� Liberal Party
� New World Telecommunications Limited (“NWT”)
� Pacific Supernet Limited (“Supernet”)
� PCCW IMS Limited (“IMS”)
� The Law Society of Hong Kong (“Law Society”)
� Two members of the public
4. The submissions can be downloaded from OFTA’s website. Having
duly considered the submissions, the TA sets out in this Statement his final
views on the QoS framework for residential broadband Internet access services.
The TA’s final views are summarised as follows:
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a. The QoS framework should be implemented on a mandatory
basis for the top four residential broadband Internet access
service providers based on the number of residential broadband
service subscribers. Based on the market share information of
the period of September – November 2004, the top four
residential broadband service providers (in alphabetical order) are
HGC, HKBN, i-Cable and IMS. The new list of the top four
residential broadband Internet access service providers for the
second year of implementation will be announced by OFTA by
end of December 2005. Residential broadband Internet access
service providers other than the top four as well as the business
broadband service providers are encouraged to participate in the
scheme on a voluntary basis. For more details of voluntary
participation, please refer to Section IV of this Statement.
b. Under the QoS framework, three types of information of the
service providers will be published by the TA: (i) performance
statistics of five technical key performance indicators (“KPIs”);
(ii) information of helpline numbers, billing and service
termination; and (iii) performance pledges and statistics of two
service KPIs.
c. For the five technical KPIs, OFTA will commission an
independent institution to develop the detailed definition and
measurement methodology, as well as to conduct the
measurement. Under this arrangement, service providers will not
need to expend resources in the development and measurement
processes. The proposed technical KPIs are
(i) download time from the service provider’s website,
(ii) download time from a local website,
(iii) download time from overseas websites,
(iv) upload time to the service provider’s file transfer
protocol (“FTP”) server and
(v) network latency.
For details of the technical KPIs, please refer to Section III(A)
and Appendix I of this Statement. The performance statistics of
the five technical KPIs for the month of July 2005 will be
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published on OFTA’s website in August 2005 and will thereafter
be updated on a monthly basis.
d. The top four residential broadband Internet access service
providers shall on a mandatory basis submit to OFTA their
(i) helpline numbers,
(ii) billing information, and
(iii) information on service termination.
For details of information to be submitted, please refer to Section
III(B) and Appendix II of this Statement. The service
information will be published on OFTA’s website beginning
August 2005. The service providers are required to submit the
updated information to OFTA for amending the website whenever
there are changes to the information. Residential broadband
Internet access service providers other than the top four as well as
business broadband service providers are encouraged to
participate on a voluntary basis and disclose the service
information to the public.
e. The top four residential broadband Internet access service
providers shall on a mandatory basis submit to OFTA
(i) their performance pledges of the QoS standard of the two
service KPIs (i.e. complaint handling time and enquiry
call answering time) and
(ii) their quarterly performance statistics of the two service
KPIs, signed off by the chief executive officer, directors or
company secretary of the company, certifying the
statistical information provided is “true and fair”.
For details of the two service KPIs, please refer to Section III(C)
as well as Appendix III and IV of this Statement. The pledges
and performance statistics of the two service KPIs for the quarter
of April – June 2005 will be published on OFTA’s website in
August 2005 and will be updated quarterly thereafter.
Residential broadband Internet access service providers other
than the top four as well as business broadband service providers
are encouraged to participate on a voluntary basis and disclose
the service information to the public.
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f. As explained above, the three types of information to be
disclosed under the QoS framework (as set out in point b of this
paragraph) will first be published on OFTA’s website in August
2005 and will be updated regularly by OFTA.
g. The QoS framework will be reviewed biennially.
5. The following sections of this Statement will give the TA’s
preliminary views, the summary of submissions, the TA’s responses to
submissions as well as his final views on the following aspects of the QoS
framework.
I. Why we need a QoS scheme?
II. Who will participate in the QoS scheme on a mandatory basis?
III. What kind of information will be disclosed under the QoS
scheme?
A. Technical KPIs
B. Service information of Helpline Numbers, Billing and
Service Termination
C. Service KPIs
i) Approach
ii) Legal basis
iii) What are the two service KPIs and why are they
selected?
iv) How to ensure the truthfulness of the Performance
Statistics?
v) Enforcement of Performance Pledges
IV. Participation on a voluntary basis
V. Review of the QoS framework
VI. Business market segment
VII. Other issues
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(I) WHY WE NEED A QoS SCHEME?
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
6. CC and HKTUG supported the initiative in implementing the QoS
scheme. CC strongly believed that consumers need to be well informed of the
QoS of different service providers in the market. HKTUG considered that, in
a fully liberalised telecommunications market, QoS information among other
pricing and service feature information, should be made transparent to end
users such that they can make an informed choice.
7. i-Cable doubted whether a QoS scheme was necessary. It suggested
the TA to take into account the availability and effectiveness of market-based
solutions, in lieu of regulatory intervention. The company submitted that
information asymmetry possibly existed in every market and this should not be
a cause for regulatory intervention unless there was evidence establishing the
existence of market failure. i-Cable further commented that if operators and
regulator were to invest in the scheme, the need of the scheme and the actual
benefit had to be first proved and quantified. However, in the Consultation
Paper, the actual benefits for consumers to have comparable QoS information
in making informed decisions were not proven or quantified, the need for the
proposed KPIs was not proven, whether the proposed KPIs could succeed in
measuring what really mattered to consumers was not established, consumers’
likely take-up of this QoS scheme was not established or quantified, whether
and how consumers would suffer from the lack of comparable QoS information
was not proven, and the likely positive influence of the QoS framework on the
overall performance of service providers was not established.
8. The TA does not subscribe to i-Cable’s views. As mentioned in the
Executive Summary, customers are usually bound by fixed-term contracts.
Even if a customer finds the service quality provided by the service provider
unsatisfactory during the commitment period, many of them would have to
continue to subscribe to the service reluctantly to avoid losses resulted from
penalty charges. One of the effective ways to address consumers’ concerns is
to enhance the transparency of QoS and service information of different service
providers in the market. There is an obvious need for consumers to have
access to sufficient comparable QoS and service information for making
informed choices, and needless to say, the QoS framework will bring benefits
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to consumers by enhancing the transparency in the market. CC took a similar
view in its submission and supported that information asymmetry between
service providers and consumers was a cause of market imperfection, and the
market could achieve better levels of efficiency if sufficient information was
available to consumers. As a matter of fact, there are many economic
researches and empirical examples showing the problems brought about by
asymmetric information between sellers and buyers in the market (e.g. adverse
selection) as well as the benefits brought to consumers when they have
sufficient information to make informed choices.
9. Lack of transparency and asymmetric information between sellers and
buyers in the market may lead to consumers’ misunderstanding of the QoS
pledges and performance of service providers, which may possibly result in
consumers’ dissatisfaction and complaints. According to the consumer
complaint statistics published by CC on 10 January 2005, 29% of the total
consumer complaints received by CC in the past year were related to
telecommunications services, among which Internet services topped the list and
accounted for 45% of the total telecommunications-related complaints.
Internet services also accounted for the largest number (i.e. 43%) of consumer
complaints received by OFTA in 2004. While it is an undeniable fact that
consumers are getting good value for money from telecommunications services
in Hong Kong, there is an urgent need for all parties concerned, including the
industry and the regulator, to face the challenge of ensuring that service quality
will be upheld in the face of intense competition. The QoS framework will
not only address the issue of lack of transparency of QoS level in the market,
but also stimulate healthy competition among service providers on non-price
aspects and improve the QoS in the market ultimately.
10. The TA does not agree with i-Cable that the proposed QoS framework
to publish pledges and performance statistics of service KPIs is too
interventionist. It is a very light-handed regulatory initiative which aims at
providing a unified mechanism for service providers to report their QoS level
of the service KPIs. Having duly considered the submissions received during
the consultation exercise as well as the statistics of consumer complaints
received by both the CC and OFTA in 2004, the TA decides to adopt, at this
initial stage, only the “complaint handling time” and “enquiry call answering
time” as service KPIs, as compared to the original proposal of five service KPIs
(please refer to Section III(C)(iii) for more details). The technical KPIs are to
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be measured by an independent institution and therefore service providers do
not need to expend resources in collecting the statistics of technical KPIs.
Furthermore, the ultimate level of QoS to be pledged by individual operators is
determined by market forces, not by the regulator.
11. The TA takes note of i-Cable’s concern that the proposed KPIs may
not be able to address consumers’ need. As explained below in paragraphs
19 – 21, the major four types of consumer complaints received by OFTA can be
largely addressed by the three types of information to be disclosed under the
QoS framework. The TA is of the view the QoS framework as a whole can
address the genuine concerns of consumers in the residential Internet access
service market. The KPIs as well as the service information to be disclosed
under the framework are not only meaningful to consumers, they are also easy
for consumers to understand. HKTUG, who represents the interests of
business users, fully supported the proposed KPIs and submitted that these
were the industry best practice parameters. Regarding the comments on
quantification of benefits, it is indeed very difficult, if not impossible, to
quantify the benefits and other effects/influences at this point in time but it is
expected that, as the consumers become more aware of the QoS scheme, the
direct and indirect benefits brought to them will gradually increase. After
implementing the QoS framework for a reasonable period of time, the industry
and the regulator may then be in a better position to gauge the consumers’
actual take-up of the scheme, the actual benefits to be gained by consumers, as
well as the actual positive impact of the QoS framework on the overall
performance of service providers. As mentioned earlier in this paper, there
will be a biennial review on the proposed KPIs. OFTA will take that
opportunity to review the effectiveness of the QoS framework.
(II) WHO WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE QoS SCHEME ON A
MANDATORY BASIS?
The TA’s Preliminary Views
12. To determine who will be required to participate in the QoS scheme,
the TA proposed two possible approaches in the Consultation Paper. One
approach was to include only the top five residential broadband service
providers (based on the number of residential broadband Internet access service
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subscribers) on a mandatory basis in the QoS framework. Residential
broadband Internet access service providers that are not among the top five
providers would be exempt from the QoS monitoring scheme. However,
voluntary participation from these service providers as well as business
broadband service providers would be welcomed. Another approach
proposed in the Consultation Paper was to implement the scheme on a
completely voluntary basis.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
13. CC and HKTUG supported the TA’s proposal that the QoS framework
should apply to the top five residential broadband Internet access service
providers. On the other hand, HKBN and IMS submitted that the QoS
framework should be applied to all residential broadband Internet access
service providers. IMS was concerned that those service providers who were
not covered by the QoS framework would be free to do whatever they wanted
although they were in fact bound by the same licence conditions as the top five
service providers. The Law Society was concerned that applying the QoS
framework on only some of the service providers might disturb the level
playing field. HGC also argued that consumers might want to subscribe
services from smaller service providers.
14. HGC, i-Cable, NWT, Peoples and the Liberal Party supported the
proposal for implementing the QoS framework on a voluntary basis. HGC
explained that, with intense market competition, service providers would be
expected to provide QoS information to consumers upon request and
consumers would differentiate those service providers who provide QoS
information from those who do not, and therefore would be able to make
informed choices in the market. On the other hand, HKBN and HKTUG were
concerned that reliance on voluntary participation would make the QoS
framework incomplete and meaningless.
15. The TA is rather sceptical about HGC’s claim that service providers
will provide QoS information to consumers upon request due to intense market
competition. While it may be true that some service providers have published
their performance pledges on their websites, the TA is not aware that any
service providers have published their statistics of KPIs of QoS albeit the
competition on price has been intense. Even if some of the service providers
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do take the initiative to publish their QoS pledges and statistics, there is a need
for a unified framework to ensure that comparable and meaningful QoS
information of the major service providers is made available to consumers so
that they can make comparison among the service providers. Majority of the
consumers would still be unable to make an informed choice if none of the
major service providers participate in the voluntary QoS scheme. As such, the
objective of the QoS framework cannot be achieved if this is to be implemented
on a voluntary basis. Based on the statistics of residential broadband Internet
access service subscribers in the period from September to November 2004, the
top four residential service providers have already accounted for over 95% of
total market share. The market share of the 5th
largest service provider is
significantly lower than that of the 4th
largest service provider. The benefits to
be brought to the consumers by including the 5th
largest service provider into
the QoS framework may not justify the administration costs. In fact, the
market shares of the 5th
, 6th
and 7th
largest service providers are very close. In
view of the market dynamics, it is possible that the 5th
largest service provider
participating in the QoS framework might change every year. Having
considered that consumers would almost have the full picture of the QoS of
residential broadband services in Hong Kong if the top four service providers
are covered by in the QoS framework, the TA decides to mandate only the top
four service providers to participate in the QoS framework. Other service
providers may volunteer to participate. Having said that, OFTA will monitor
the market situation closely after its implementation in the first year.
16. Based on the market share information for the period of September –
November 2004, the top four residential broadband service providers (in
alphabetical order) are HGC, HKBN, i-Cable and IMS. Three types of
information (i.e. (i) performance statistics of five technical KPIs; (ii)
information of helpline numbers, billing and service termination; as well as (iii)
pledges and performance statistics of two service KPIs) of these four service
providers will first be published on OFTA’s website in August 2005 and will be
updated regularly during the first year of implementation.
17. The TA takes note of IMS’s concern that service providers which were
not covered by the QoS framework would be free to do whatever they wanted.
All licensees are obliged to comply with the licence conditions and provisions
in the Telecommunications Ordinance (the “Ordinance”). That some of the
licensees would not be obliged to submit QoS pledges and statistics to the TA
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does not mean that these licensees would not be subject to their licence
conditions and the Ordinance. As such, the TA does not subscribe to the view
that the level playing field would be disturbed. Based on the statistics of
November 2004, the remaining ISPs (over 180 in number) only accounted for
less than 5% of the residential broadband service market. Consumers’
benefits from the QoS information of these ISPs may not justify the heavy
administrative burden brought about by mandating all these remaining ISPs to
participate in the QoS scheme. Accordingly, mandating the top four
residential broadband service providers to participate in the QoS scheme is a
more efficient and economical way to achieve the objective of enabling
consumers to have sufficient comparable QoS information to make informed
choices.
18. However, residential broadband Internet access service providers
other than the top four as well as business broadband service providers are
welcome to participate in the QoS scheme on voluntary basis. Although the
technical KPIs of these voluntary participants will not be measured by the
institution commissioned by the TA under the QoS scheme, they are welcome
to disclose information of their helpline numbers, billing and service
termination, as well as pledges and performance statistics of the two service
KPIs. For more details of voluntary participation, please refer to Section IV
of this Statement.
(III) WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION WILL BE DISCLOSED
UNDER THE QoS SCHEME?
19. According to the statistics of consumer complaints received by OFTA
from January to November 2004, the complaints against residential Internet
access services accounted for 76% of the total number of consumer complaints
received by OFTA during the said period. There were four major categories of
complaints, namely:
� technical aspects of the Internet access services;
� disputes on billing;
� disputes on service termination; and
� quality of customer services
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Major Category of
Complaint Nature
Examples % of Total Cases
(Jan – Nov 2004)
I. Technical aspects of
the Internet access
service
Downloading speed, network stability, etc.
29%
II. Disputes on billing Disputes on traffic volume, service charges
and service plans
15%
III. Disputes on service
termination
Arrangement for terminating service
provision, notice period, penalty charges for
early service termination, etc.
17%
IV. Quality of customer
services
Complaint handling procedures/time, enquiry
call answering time, after-sales customer
services, etc.
14%
V. Others Email spamming, appointment of agents for
collection of debt
25%
TOTAL
100%
20. The TA considers that complaints related to technical aspects of the
Internet access service (i.e. category I of the above table) should be largely
covered by the technical KPIs under the QoS framework. Information on
billing and service termination (i.e. categories II and III of the above table) is
important service information which should be disclosed to consumers to
enhance transparency in the market. The quality of customer services (i.e.
category IV of the above table) should be largely covered by the service KPIs.
21. Accordingly, three types of information should be made available to
consumers under the QoS framework, namely:
� performance statistics of technical KPIs (please refer to
subsection (A) under this section);
� service information related to helpline contact information,
billing and service termination (please refer to subsection (B));
and
� performance pledges and statistics of service KPIs (please refer to
subsection (C)).
With these three types of information made available to consumers, the QoS
framework should be able to address the genuine concerns of consumers in the
residential broadband Internet access service market and can provide the most
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meaningful information from the consumers’ perspectives when they are
considering whether to sign up for a service with a particular service provider.
The TA is of the view that it is prudent to start the QoS framework with a
manageable number of KPIs and progressively increase the number of
indicators later as more operational experience is gained.
(A) Technical KPIs
The TA’s Preliminary Views
22. In the Consultation Paper, the TA proposed that the definitions and
measurement methodology of technical KPIs should be carried out by an
independent institution since these KPIs were more complicated and would
take longer time to formulate the measurement details. Five technical
performance indicators were proposed, namely (i) download time from the
service provider’s website, (ii) download time from a local website, (iii)
download time from overseas websites, (iv) upload time to the service
provider’s FTP server and (v) network latency.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
23. There were no adverse comments on the proposal of commissioning
an independent institution to conduct the measurement of technical
performance indicators. HKTUG considered that the five proposed KPIs were
industry best practice parameters and should be adopted when the QoS
framework commenced. CC and IMS supported the TA’s proposal of
commissioning an independent institution for the measurement exercise.
24. Although the proposal on the technical KPIs may not address each
and every aspect, it will give an indication of the technical performances
associated with a range of applications that are commonly used by the public.
Making the performance statistics of service providers on these KPIs available
to consumers would help consumers to make informed choices.
25. Since the TA receives no adverse comments on the proposal of
commissioning an independent institution to conduct the measurement of
technical performance indicators, he decides to adopt such an approach. The
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institution to be commissioned will be responsible to develop the detailed
definitions and measurement methodology of the technical KPIs, as well as to
carry out the measurement process. The institution will take into account the
views and comments received in response to the consultation. Details of the
comments on the technical performance indicators and the TA’s responses may
be found in Appendix I of this Statement.
26. Subject to the progress of the measurement exercise, the publication
of measurement result for the month of July 2005 is scheduled for August 2005
and will thereafter be updated on a monthly basis.
(B) Service Information of Helpline Numbers, Billing and Service
Termination
27. As explained in paragraph 19, a large number of consumer complaints
are related to disputes on billing and service termination. Accordingly, the TA
considers that there is a need to disclose detailed information on billing (e.g.
methods of delivering the bills to customers, payment options, deadline for
disputing the bill, etc.) and service termination (e.g. what the customers need to
do in order to terminate the service, penalty charges for early service
termination, notice period, etc.) to consumers in order to address their genuine
concerns when they subscribe to a service. In addition to information on
billing and service termination, the TA also considers helpline number(s) to be
very useful service information for consumers.
28. Information of helpline number(s), billing and service termination is
readily available. Service providers do not need to incur costs or resources in
collecting and reporting such information to OFTA and the public, yet the
consumers will find the information very useful for them to make informed
purchasing decisions. For details of information to be disclosed, please refer
to Appendix II of this Statement.
29. Service providers are required to submit the relevant information to
the TA by 31 July 2005. The service information will first be published on
OFTA’s website in August 2005. Service providers are required to submit the
updated information to OFTA for amending the website whenever there are any
changes to the published information.
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(C) Service KPIs
(i) Approach
The TA’s Preliminary Views
30. In the Consultation Paper, the TA proposed that there would not be
any universal minimum QoS level. Residential broadband Internet access
service providers themselves could make pledges of their own QoS standard of
service KPIs and the QoS level would then be determined by the market. To
enable consumers to make informed choices in the market, service providers
should submit their performance pledges and quarterly statistics of the five
service KPIs to the TA, who would collate the returns and publish the pledges
and performance statistics of the service providers. In this way, consumers
would have ready access to information regarding comparable non-price
performance of the service providers.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
31. CC, HKBN, IMS, NWT and the Liberal Party agreed with the TA that
any universal minimum QoS standard, set either by the TA or the industry,
would not be meaningful for service providers or consumers. The service
level should be determined by market forces.
32. IMS agreed that the approach of reporting whether the licensee has
“passed or failed” the universal minimum standard would not be able to make
distinctions for various levels of substandard and superior service. On the
other hand, Supernet supported the “pass or fail” approach since it would be
easier for consumers to understand. While it may be true that the “pass or
fail” approach may be easier for consumers to understand, the TA is concerned
that this approach may fail to make distinctions for various levels of
substandard and superior service. The TA considers that a mere indication of
“pass or fail” would not provide sufficient QoS information for the consumers
to make an informed choice.
33. HKBN highlighted the importance to ensure that consumers could
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ultimately benefit from the QoS information and would not be confused or
misled by the information. As such, all KPIs should be clearly defined to
avoid ambiguities, different or conflicting interpretations or even manipulations.
The TA agrees with HKBN on the importance of clear definitions of the KPIs.
The TA has duly considered the comments received on the KPIs and has made
appropriate amendments to the definition and/or calculation methodology of
the KPIs. The TA has also studied the statistics of complaints received by
OFTA in 2004 and has made some changes to the choice of service KPIs such
that the type of information to be disclosed under the QoS framework can
better address the genuine concerns of the consumers in the market.
34. i-Cable submitted that the information submitted by service providers
to OFTA should be for OFTA’s monitoring purpose only. Publication of such
information might invite unhealthy competition among service providers. The
TA rejects i-Cable’s view. The objective of the proposed framework is to
provide QoS information of the residential broadband Internet access service
providers to consumers such that they can make informed choices. Without
publishing the QoS information, the objective of the framework simply cannot
be achieved. As explained in the Consultation Paper, publication of
comparable performance statistics will encourage service providers to strive for
higher level of QoS and stimulate healthy competition in the market on
non-price aspects. Pressure from public scrutiny of the performance figures
will also motivate the service providers to address substandard performance.
The TA does not agree with i-Cable that publication of QoS information would
invite unhealthy competition. On the contrary, the TA is of the view that such
publication would encourage healthy competition among the service providers
on aspects other than pricing.
35. Having considered the comments received during the consultation
exercise, the TA maintains his view that service providers should submit their
performance pledges and quarterly statistics of the service KPIs (please refer to
subsection (iii) for the details of the service KPIs) to the TA, who will collate
the returns and publish the pledges and performance statistics of the service
providers. The QoS level should be determined by the market. The pledges
and statistics of service providers on service KPIs for the quarter of April –
June 2005 will first be published on OFTA’s website in August 2005 and will
be updated on a quarterly basis. For the detailed implementation timetable for
publishing the performance pledges and statistics of service KPIs on OFTA’s
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website, please refer to Appendix V of this Statement.
(ii) Legal Basis
The TA’s Preliminary Views
36. General Condition (“GC ”) 18(1) of the Fixed Telecommunications
Network Services (“FTNS”) Licence, Special Condition (“SC”) 6(1) of the
Fixed Carrier Licence as well as SC 5(1) of the Public Non-exclusive
Telecommunications Service (“PNETS”) Licence for International Value-added
Network Services1 (“IVANS”) require the licensee to furnish the TA with such
information related to the business run by the licensee under the licence, as the
TA may reasonably require in order to perform his functions under the licence.
GC 10(1) of the FTNS Licence, SC 5(1) of the Fixed Carrier Licence as well as
GC 1 of the PNETS Licence for IVANS require the licensee to operate,
maintain and provide the service in a manner satisfactory to the TA. The
information required to be submitted and published pursuant to this Statement
is, where appropriate, of relevance to the obligations to provide a satisfactory
services as prescribed under GC 10(1) of the FTNS Licence, SC 5(1) of the
Fixed Carrier Licence or GC 1 of the PNETS Licence for IVANS. As such, the
performance pledges made by the licensee as well as the performance statistics
of the licensee are considered as information that “the TA may reasonably
require in order to perform his functions under the […] licence”, and should be
furnished to the TA under GC 18(1) of the FTNS Licence, SC 6(1) of the Fixed
Carrier Licence or SC 5(1) of the PNETS Licence for IVANS. A 2-month
consultation period had duly offered an opportunity to all concerned licensees
to make representations to the TA on the proposed disclosure of QoS pledges
and performance statistics.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
37. IMS argued that none of the conditions in the licence or the Ordinance
required information on QoS pledges and performance statistics of a licensee
and that the TA did not need this information for performing his functions
under the licence and the Ordinance. As such, IMS doubted whether the TA
was legally empowered to mandate the concerned licensees to furnish him with
1 Under the current licensing regime, Internet service provider is issued with a PNETS licence for
IVANS.
- 18 -
the information on QoS pledges and performance statistics.
38. As explained in the Consultation Paper, under GC 10(1) of the FTNS
Licence, SC 5(1) of the Fixed Carrier Licence or GC 1 of the PNETS Licence
for IVANS, the licensee has the obligation of providing the service in a manner
satisfactory to the TA. The TA considers that in order to ensure that the
service is being provided in a satisfactory manner, the licensee should take
adequate steps to measure and monitor its service performance and to take
corrective actions if the performance falls below targets set by the licensee. In
particular, answering enquiries and handling complaints from consumers are
two important aspects of satisfactory service performance. Past statistics of
OFTA have shown that these two aspects were significant sources of consumer
dissatisfaction. Therefore the licensee should reasonably be expected to set
targets for these two aspects of service performance, pledge such targets to its
customers, and regularly monitor actual performance to ascertain whether it is
meeting the pledged targets. The TA needs to have access to such targets
established, and statistics collected, by the licensee in order to ascertain
whether the licensed service is provided satisfactorily by the licensee. Thus
the performance pledges made by the licensee as well as the performance
statistics of the licence are considered as information that “the TA may
reasonably require in order to perform his functions under the […] licence”,
and should be furnished to the TA under GC 18(1) of the FTNS Licence, SC
6(1) of the Fixed Carrier Licence or SC 5(1) of the PNETS Licence for IVANS.
The TA therefore does not agree with IMS’s position.
39. Having considered the submissions received during the consultation
period, the TA has duly revised the parameters for publication to address the
industry’s concern. It is appreciated that licensees might be concerned that the
limited disclosure as prescribed by this Statement could arguably, in some
circumstances, adversely affect the licensee’s financial and commercial
position, as inferior service performance might be exposed. Nevertheless, given
the competitiveness of the market, it is reasonable to expect that poor QoS
should naturally lead to poor market performance. The TA is satisfied that the
disclosure by the TA would not reasonably be expected to adversely affect the
licensee’s lawful business or commercial or financial affairs. Meanwhile,
disclosure of service performance pledges and statistics is in the public interest
as the disclosure would enable the consumers to make informed choice and the
market mechanisms to work effectively to uphold and improve QoS. After
- 19 -
having due deliberations upon the submissions received, the TA is satisfied that
the parameters for disclosure of service performance pledges and statistics
prescribed by Statement has struck a right balance between protecting the
public interest and preserving licensees’ legitimate commercial interests within
the ambit as envisaged by GC18 of the FTNS Licence, SC 6 of the Fixed
Carrier Licence or SC 5 of the PNETS Licence for IVANS. Accordingly, the
TA decides to publish, on OFTA’s website, the information of service
performance pledges and statistics of residential broadband Internet access
service providers.
(iii) What are the Two Service KPIs and Why?
The TA’s Preliminary Views
40. Five service performance indicators were proposed in the
Consultation Paper, namely (i) service provisioning time, (ii) service
restoration time, (iii) customer-reported faults per 1000 customer lines, (iv)
complaint handling time and (v) enquiry call answering time.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
41. HKTUG considered that the five proposed KPIs were industry best
practice parameters and should be adopted when the QoS framework
commenced. On the other hand, HKBN questioned the basis of how the TA
decided which particular aspects of QoS shall be of the greatest concern to the
consumers and how the TA defined the various KPIs. It elaborated that QoS
was basically a subjective matter and no single measure could satisfactorily
capture all aspects of QoS that were of concern to consumers. Furthermore,
defining KPIs would involve a great deal of details which might not be easily
understood by the general public and might even bring complexity and
potential confusion to consumers. i-Cable opined that apple-to-apple
comparison would drive operators to compete along narrow aspects of quality
and might fossilise quality competition at the expense of other important
dimensions of differentiation and innovation.
42. As explained in paragraph 19, one of the major categories of
consumer complaints received by OFTA is “quality of customer services”
which mainly refers to complaint handling procedures/time, enquiry call
- 20 -
answering time, after-sales customer services, etc. While “service
provisioning time”, “service restoration time” and “number of
customer-reported faults” are widely adopted by other developed economies for
monitoring QoS of their public telecommunications services, it seems that the
consumers in the residential broadband Internet access service market in Hong
Kong do have not particular concerns over these three aspects. Having
balanced the costs and benefits, the TA considers that it is more appropriate to
adopt “complaint handling time” and “enquiry call answering time” as the
service KPIs under the QoS framework at this initial stage. However, the
number and choice of service KPIs will be reviewed after two years of
implementation of the QoS framework. More importantly, service providers
are free to disclose QoS pledges and performance statistics for indicators which
are not covered in the QoS framework. As such, the TA does not subscribe to
i-Cable’s argument that the QoS framework would drive service providers to
compete along narrow aspects of QoS.
43. Some broadband service providers are offering other
telecommunications services under the same licence and using a unified
customer service platform, including the customer hotlines and complaint
handling mechanisms. Examples are fixed carrier licensees who operate their
residential broadband Internet access services under their fixed carrier licences.
These fixed carriers may already be capturing the two service KPIs without
further classifying the acquired data according to their service types. To ensure
minimal disruption to the day-to-day operation of service providers, it will not
be necessary for these service providers to modify their service platforms in
order to capture the data specifically for residential broadband Internet access
services for the sake of conforming to the current QoS Scheme. These service
providers will though need to inform the TA that the figures that they report
under the QoS Scheme apply to other services as well.
44. The TA takes note of HKBN’s concern that defining KPIs would
involve a great deal of details which may not be easily understood by the
general public. At this initial stage, service KPIs only include “complaint
handling time” and “enquiry call answering time”. The definition of these
two KPIs should be easy for consumers to understand yet meaningful for them.
As a matter of fact, no submissions received during the consultation exercise
considered that definition of these two KPIs would be difficult for consumers
to understand or would bring complexity or potential confusion to consumers.
- 21 -
45. Comments on the two service KPIs and the TA’s responses can be
found in Appendix III of this Statement. Having considered the comments
received, the TA has finalised the definitions and calculation methodology of
the KPIs, which can be found in Appendix IV of this Statement.
(iv) How to Ensure the Truthfulness of the Performance Statistics?
The TA’s Preliminary Views
46. In order to ensure that service providers submit “true” performance
statistics of the service KPIs, the TA proposed in the Consultation Paper that
service providers should submit audited performance statistics once a year.
The TA also invited views and comments on whether section 7M of the
Ordinance would be a sufficient safeguard against incorrect information on
QoS reported by service providers.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
47. i-Cable, IMS and NWT submitted that section 7M should be a
sufficient safeguard against incorrect information on QoS reported by service
providers. On the other hand, the Law Society took an opposite view and
considered that external auditing should be set as a mandatory requirement.
IMS and Peoples considered that external auditing would not only impose
financial burden on service providers, but also create additional administrative
work. Furthermore, the auditing result might not be timely for the purpose of
statistics publication. Supernet suggested OFTA to fund an external auditor to
audit the information submitted by all participating service providers. As an
alternative to external auditing, IMS suggested to have the performance
statistics endorsed by a senior officer of the service providers.
48. The TA is of the view that section 7M of the Ordinance and external
auditing are two separate and distinct means of ensuring truthful and reliable
reporting of performance statistics by service providers. The difference is that
section 7M may be considered as a more “passive” means of regulation (i.e. the
TA may start investigation under section 7M upon receiving a complaint),
whereas external auditing is a more “proactive” means (i.e. an annual
examination exercise to ensure the submitted statistics are true and accurate).
- 22 -
However, it should be emphasised that the requirement of external auditing
does not preclude enforcement actions under section 7M.
49. The service KPIs will be meaningful only if service providers submit
true performance statistics. If consumers do not have any confidence in the
statistics submitted by service providers, the service KPIs would become
meaningless at all. While external auditing may be the most effective and
efficient way to ensure that the service providers submit reliable statistics, the
TA takes note of the concern that external auditing might impose financial
burden on service providers. Having considered that this is a new scheme and
the service providers may be occupied during the initial years of
implementation in making and further improving the arrangements for
collecting the performance statistics of the service KPIs, the TA is of the view
that in the first two years of implementation the top four residential broadband
Internet access service providers should have the discretion to decide whether
or not to submit an external auditor’s report for their performance statistics of
the two service KPIs. If the service providers choose not to submit the
external auditor’s report, they are required to submit the quarterly statistics
together with a letter signed by the chief executive officer, directors or
company secretary of the company, certifying that the performance statistics
submitted are “true and fair”. Whether service providers would be required to
submit external auditor’s report for their performance statistics will be
reviewed by the TA two years after the implementation of the QoS framework.
(v) Enforcement of Performance Pledges
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
50. The Law Society requested OFTA to clarify the sanctions it intended
to impose on service providers which failed to meet the performance pledges
and the rights their customers would have in relation to such failure. On the
contrary, IMS submitted that failure to meet the performance pledges should
not be taken as a breach of GC 10 of the FTNS Licence, SC 5 of the Fixed
Carrier Licence or GC 1 of the PNETS Licence for IVANS, which required the
licensee to operate, maintain and provide service in a manner satisfactory to the
TA. IMS submitted that the frequency of failure to meet the pledges should
be taken into consideration when the TA formed his view on breach of licence
condition. NWT also submitted that, in case of severe weather and emergency
- 23 -
situations, service providers might not be able to meet the QoS pledges.
51. The TA takes note of the service providers’ view that failure to fulfill
their performance pledges should not be considered as a breach of licence
condition. The TA understands that failure to achieve the level of pledges is
sometimes caused by factors which are beyond the service providers’
reasonable control. In handling complaints against service providers for
failing to meet performance pledges, the TA would look into the circumstances
of individual cases and would take into account whether reasonable steps or
measures to rectify or avoid the faults have been put in place.
52. IMS mentioned that some small service providers might like to gain
credibility by voluntarily participating in the QoS monitoring scheme but
choosing to falsely report the performance statistics. OFTA would require all
service providers, whether they participate on a mandatory or voluntary basis,
to verify and sign off the performance statistics of the two service KPIs by
chief executive officer, directors or company secretary of the company.
(IV) PARTICIPATION ON A VOLUNTARY BASIS
53. As explained in Section II of this Statement, the TA will mandate only
the top four residential broadband Internet access service providers to
participate in the QoS scheme. However, the TA welcomes residential
broadband service providers other than the top four as well as business
broadband service providers to participate on a voluntary basis. Participation
in the QoS scheme on either mandatory or voluntary basis will bring benefits to
the service providers.
54. With a view to prioritizing resources, the institution commissioned by
the TA to measure the technical KPIs will only conduct measurement of the top
four residential broadband service providers who will be required to participate
in the QoS scheme on a mandatory basis. In other words, at the initial stage,
the technical KPIs of the voluntary participants will not be available to
consumers under the QoS framework. As more experience is gained, OFTA
may review the arrangement and may consider extending the scope to cover the
voluntary participants. However, for those voluntary participants who are
really keen to have their performance statistics of technical KPIs measured and
- 24 -
published on OFTA’s website, they are welcome to approach the TA to discuss
the arrangement on the understanding that they will have to deploy their own
resources for the exercise.
55. Under the QoS framework, service providers participating on the
voluntary basis will submit to the TA two types of information, namely:
� service information of helpline numbers, billing and service
termination (please refer to Section III(B) of this Statement); and
� performance pledges and statistics of service KPIs (please refer to
Section III(C)).
56. Voluntary participants who wish to have their service information (i.e.
information of helpline numbers, billing and service termination) published on
OFTA’s website in August 2005 are required to inform OFTA of the intention
by 15 March 2004 and provide the information to OFTA by 31 July 2005.
Updated information should be submitted to OFTA whenever there are changes
to the information. Some voluntary participants may join the QoS scheme
later. They may provide their service information to OFTA at any time on the
understanding that OFTA will need sufficient lead-time to upload the
information to the website.
57. Since the measurement exercise of the service KPIs will commence in
April 2005 (i.e. the first measurement quarter is April – June 2005), voluntary
participants who wish to publish service KPIs on OFTA’s website in August
2005 are required to notify the TA by 15 March 2005. Voluntary participants
may of course join the QoS scheme later. They are required to notify the TA
two weeks before the commencement of the measurement exercise. They are
also required to follow the implementation timetable in Appendix V for the
publication of their performance pledges and statistics of the service KPIs. For
example, the deadlines for them to submit the pledges and statistics of service
KPIs to OFTA are 31 January, 30 April, 31 July and 31 October every year.
(V) REVIEW OF THE QoS FRAMEWORK
The TA’s Preliminary Views
58. In view of the dynamics of the broadband Internet access service
- 25 -
market, the TA proposed in the Consultation Paper reviewing the QoS
regulatory framework biennially, including but not limited to the criteria for
defining the targets of the QoS framework as well as the choice of KPIs. A
public consultation might be initiated for the review exercise to solicit views
and comments from the industry, consumer interest groups and the general
public.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
59. IMS agreed with the TA’s proposal and submitted that any
amendments or modifications of the QoS framework should be consulted prior
to implementation. HKBN questioned the justification for setting a timeframe
of 2 years.
60. The broadband Internet access service market is changing fast and the
QoS framework should be reviewed frequently in order to keep pace with the
market. On the other hand, a review exercise of a framework might not be
meaningful if the framework has not been implemented for a reasonable period
of time. Having taken into account the time required to enhance consumers’
awareness of the QoS framework and educate the consumers about the KPIs, as
well as the time required by service providers to gradually improve the level of
their QoS through healthy competition, the TA maintains his view that the
proposed 2-year timeframe is reasonable.
(VI) BUSINESS MARKET SEGMENT
The TA’s Preliminary Views
61. In view of the fact that business users were generally protected by the
service level agreements signed with the broadband service providers and that
business users usually had stronger power to bargain with the service providers
than residential consumers do, the TA proposed in the Consultation Paper to
focus the QoS framework on residential market segment first. The TA might
consider monitoring the business market segment at a later stage.
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
- 26 -
62. Since the TA has not received any opposing view against his proposal,
he maintains his view that he may consider monitoring the business market
segment at a later stage. However, he welcomes participation in the QoS
scheme by the business broadband service providers on a voluntary basis.
(VII) OTHER ISSUES
Summary of Submissions and the TA’s Responses
63. CC suggested that OFTA should conduct a customer satisfaction
survey to identify the crucial elements (apart from price) which were most
relevant to the purchasing decision concerning telecommunications services.
The result of the survey would help to define the KPIs and help service
providers to focus on areas which were concerned by consumers the most.
The TA takes note of CC’s suggestion of conducting customer satisfaction
survey. OFTA may consider this in the review exercise which will be held
two years after the implementation of the QoS framework.
64. The Liberal Party submitted that the sales and marketing tactics as
well as the contractual issues were not discussed in the Consultation Paper
although consumers were generally very concerned about these issues. A
member of the public also raised his concern that customers were subject to a
penalty if they terminated the service before end of the commitment period
even though the service provider was unable to provide satisfactory service to
the customers. The TA is well aware of the consumers’ concern about the
service providers’ sales and marketing tactics as well as the contractual issues.
In fact, OFTA has been working closely with the industry to ensure that the
sales and marketing activities are conducted in a satisfactory manner. For
example, OFTA has issued on 12 November 2004 the Code of Practice for the
Service Contracts for the Provision of Public Telecommunications Services,
which covers the service contracts of broadband Internet access services.
Section 7M of the Ordinance also prevents licensees from engaging in conduct
which is misleading or deceptive.
Office of the Telecommunications Authority
31 January 2005
- 27 -
Appendix I
Comments Received on Technical Performance Indicators and the TA’s Responses
(1) General Comments
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
The TA will consider
commission an independent
institution to measure the
technical indicators for
residential broadband service
providers.
CC: supports the Government
commissioning an independent
institution to measure the
technical indicators for
residential broadband service
providers. CC urges the
Government to publish the
technical performance statistics
as soon as possible and make
effort to ensure that the
indicators and statistics are
easily comprehensible to
consumers.
Noted.
HKTUG: technical performance
indicators are industry best
practice parameters and
HKTUG is in agreement that
these to be used initially. The
same set of performance
indicators for business services
should be included in later
phases for Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMSs) and
corporate users.
Noted.
IMS: Agrees that the TA should
commission an independent
institution with the necessary
technical expertise to work out
the measurements of the
technical indicators.
Noted.
HGC: The public Internet is an
uncontrolled environment, so it
is impossible to have a set of
meaningful technical
performance indicators as there
are countless reasons giving rise
to service unavailability.
The set of technical
performance indicators will
not gauge the performances of
individual ISPs under all
possible circumstances, but it
will give an indication of the
technical parameters
- 28 -
associated with a range of
applications that are
commonly used by the public.
The TA considers that
availability of these indicators
should foster a more
conducive environment for
customers making informed
choice.
Supernet: OFTA should verify
with the service providers before
publishing the figures. It will
be unfair to the service
providers if the figures are not
correct.
The 2-month consultation
period provided an
opportunity to all concerned
licensees to make
representations on the
proposed disclosure of
information. However, OFTA
may consider giving advance
notice to the service providers
about their own technical
performance before the actual
release of the figures if the
circumstances so warrant.
i-Cable: Technical indicators
cannot be truly objective because
there are many variables in the
measurement process that cannot
be controlled by the service
providers, e.g. customer’s
computer hardware and software
configuration.
We will strive to minimize
uncertainties which might
happen during the
measurement process.
HGC: Alternative indicators such
as bandwidth to HKIX and
overseas Internet service
providers would provide useful
information to the consumers.
Noted.
(2) Download Time from the Service Provider’s Web-site
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
It refers to the time required for
downloading a file from the
service provider’s web-site to
the customer’s computer.
HGC: Only those indicators
involving transmission between
end user and the service
provider (i.e. download time
from service provider's web
Noted.
- 29 -
site and upload time to service
provider's FTP server) can be
given by HGC. All other
suggested indicators involve
third party network and
equipment, and are
uncontrollable.
i-Cable: A dedicated server
should be developed and used
in the download test so as to
reflect the network
performance in a fair and
correct manner.
The objective of the
measurement is not to reflect
the optimal network
performance of individual
service providers but the
general performance
perceived by the consumers
during their normal use. The
TA does not see how the use
of a dedicated server is
conducive to attaining this
objective.
(3) Download Time from a Local Web-site
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
It refers to the time required for
downloading a file from a local
web-site other than the service
provider’s to the customer side.
In order to measure the
download time, a
representative web-site in Hong
Kong should be selected to
facilitate the measurement.
Since most of the major service
providers have direct
connections with the Hong
Kong Internet Exchange
(HKIX) for routing their local
Internet traffic, OFTA proposes
to designate the web-site of the
HKIX (www.hkix.net) as the
“local web-site” in the
measurement.
HGC: Only those involving
transmission between end user
and the service provider (i.e.
download time from service
provider's web site and upload
time to service provider's FTP
server) can be given by HGC.
All other suggested indicators
involve third party network and
equipment, and are
uncontrollable.
As the leased lines connecting
the service providers and
HKIX should not involve any
third party network,
measurement of the indicator
should be effective and
objective.
(4) Download Time from Overseas Web-sites
- 30 -
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
It refers to the time required for
downloading a file from a
group of overseas web-sites to
the customer’s computer.
Three representative overseas
web-sites that are popular with
users of Hong Kong in respect
of browsing activities would be
selected.
HGC: Only those involving
transmission between end user
and the service provider (i.e.
download time from service
provider's web site and upload
time to service provider's FTP
server) can be given by HGC.
All other suggested indicators
involve third party network and
equipment, and are
uncontrollable.
Noted. The institution to be
commissioned will consider the
comment.
i-Cable: Upstream providers of
the overseas websites, cache
servers of some service
providers and the file size for
downloading may affect the
correctness of the measurement
results.
Noted. The institution to be
commissioned will consider the
comment.
(5) Upload Time to the Service Provider’s FTP Server
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
It refers to the time required for
uploading a file using FTP
from the customer’s computer
to the service provider’s FTP
server.
HGC: Only those involving
transmission between end user
and the service provider (i.e.
download time from service
provider's web site and upload
time to service provider's FTP
server) can be given by HGC.
All other suggested indicators
involve third party network and
equipment, and are
uncontrollable.
Noted.
i-Cable: A dedicated server
should be developed and used in
the upload test so as to reflect
the network performance in a
fair and correct manner.
The objective of the
measurement is not to reflect
the optimal network
performance of individual
service provider but the general
performance perceived by the
consumers during their normal
- 31 -
use. The TA does not see how
the use of a dedicated server is
conducive to attaining this
objective.
- 32 -
(6) Network Latency
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
It refers to the time required for
a network to respond to a
customer command. This
indicator serves as a
quantitative figure to reflect the
round trip delay which is
crucial to real-time interactive
applications such as on-line
games. Three representative
overseas servers that are
popular with users of Hong
Kong in respect of real-time
interactive applications would
be selected.
i-Cable: The measurement of the
network latency may not be
possible because some of the
upstream providers may block
‘ping’ or ICMP protocol.
Noted. The institution to be
commissioned will consider the
comment.
(7) Measurement Methodology
Proposal in the
Consultation Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
File size: Taking into account
the typical size of multimedia
files (e.g. JPEG photos) and the
need to avoid overloading the
network during the
measurement, the file to be
used in the download and
upload process should be
approximately 2 M bytes in
size.
i-Cable: In order to achieve the
highest download speed, a file
size of 2M bytes is not large
enough to give the testing
computer and server sufficient
time to achieve their highest
performance.
The institution to be
commissioned will take this
into consideration.
However, it should be pointed
out that the measurement is
not intended to reflect the
optimal network performance
of individual service provider
but the general performance
perceived by the consumers
during their normal use.
Peak hour: 23:00-24:00 hour,
based on the switching
statistics of the HKIX.
i-Cable: A measurement during
non-peak hours is needed as a
comparison to that obtained
during peak hours to give a
more representative picture on
the network performance of the
operator using IBCCDS based
facilities.
It is noted that “peak-hour” is
commonly used as a reference
time window to compare
network performance. Taking
into account the difficulty in
reaching an industry consensus
on the reference time window
outside “peak hour” and the
resources required in the
measurement, the TA considers
- 33 -
that “non-peak hour”
measurement is not worthwhile.
However, the TA may consider
advising the consumers that the
network performance might
vary significantly during peak
and non-peak hours. One
possible means is to incorporate
a note to the measurement
results.
Measurement locations: 20
locations at the customer side
which are to be randomly
selected within the coverage
area of a broadband network
and the selected locations
should be spaced out evenly.
i-Cable: The proposed 20
measurement locations are not
sufficient and the measurement
results would not be meaningful.
It considers that the sample size
should be at least 300.
Conducting measurement at
more than 300 locations comes
at a price. The costs and
benefits need to be assessed and
weighted against each other.
The apparatus to be deployed
should be a personal computer
with the widely used hardware
and software configurations
(e.g. web browser).
NWT: In order to provide a fair
comparison of the technical
performance indicators among
various service providers, all
testing and measurements
should be done under same
conditions. NWT raised
several queries about the test
mode, test frequency, test
standard, test date, test location
and the overseas website details.
The consultation paper was
intended to outline the
measurement framework with a
view to facilitating industry
submissions of proposals. The
TA will commission an
independent institution with
technical expertise to work out
the detailed measurement
arrangements.
The technical performance
indicators should be measured
at the customer side and during
peak hour to reflect the real
network situations.
i-Cable: Some service providers
offer both broadband Internet
access and other multimedia
services (e.g. television service).
The comparison of the
measurement results between (a)
broadband service and (b)
broadband service with
multimedia service, is unfair.
The consumers may be
confused.
The measurement is intended to
place a focus on the
performance of Internet
connection from a user’s
perspective. The TA proposed
in the Consultation Paper that
an indicator should be the
average values collected from a
number of samples concerned.
Therefore, the indicator should
be able to provide a fair
assessment on the overall
bandwidth performance. In
any case, the institution to be
commissioned will take this
into consideration.
- 34 -
Appendix II
Information to be Disclosed on Helpline Numbers, Billing and Service
Termination
1. Helpline Numbers
Contact information of service providers will be made available under the QoS
framework so that customers or potential customers could be aware of the
appropriate channels to communicate with the service providers. Sufficient
contact information should be made available such that common types of
customers’ enquiries including general enquiry, billing enquiry, technical
helpdesk, sales registration, etc. can be catered for. Service providers can
choose to disclose one single general hotline number, or several different
hotline numbers which address different categories of customers’ enquiries.
To allow customers or potential customers to have effective channels to contact
the service providers whenever necessary, the minimum contact information to
be provided should consist of the following:
(i) telephone number, and
(ii) e-mail address.
2. Billing Information
Billing information will be made available under the QoS framework. Billing
information should clearly and explicitly specify the rights and obligations of
each party during the entire process of bill handling procedures, from issuance
of bill to bill dispute resolution, such that customers can have sufficient
information to make informed choices.
Billing information should at least include the following:
(i) method of delivery of bills,
(ii) payment options, and
(iii) deadline for raising dispute.
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Method of delivery of bills - Service providers should set out all options of
methods of delivering bills to customers, such as electronic bill by email, paper
bill by post, and any other options available to customers (e.g. Braille bill for
blind people or a bill with larger character size for people with reading
difficulty, etc.). Where surcharge is levied on customers for requesting a
particular method for delivering the bill or other special requirements on the
presentation of the bill, service providers shall explicitly specify the surcharges
as well as other relevant terms and conditions.
Payment options – Service providers should set out all payment options
available to customers for settling the bill, e.g. auto-pay, PPS, cash, cheque, etc.
Where deposit or surcharge is required for a particular mode of payment,
service providers shall explicitly specify the amount of deposit required as well
as other relevant terms and conditions.
Deadline for raising dispute – Service providers should specify the deadline, if
any, for customers to raise dispute on bill.
3. Information on Service Termination
Service providers shall specify information on service termination so as to
inform customers on relevant procedures and potential liabilities arising from
service termination. The information should be sufficient and clear enough in
order to avoid disputes.
Service termination information should at least include the following:
(i) Service termination fee,
(ii) Period of notice for service termination, and
(iii) Relevant procedures to request for service termination.
Service termination fee – Where a fee is levied on customers for terminating
the service, the calculation basis of the fee as well as other relevant terms and
conditions should be fully disclosed. The service termination fee for
customers who are still bound by a fixed-term contract may be different from
that for customers who are not. Service providers should clearly and
explicitly specify the fee, the relevant terms and conditions for terminating the
service for customers bound by different types of contracts.
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Period of notice for service termination – Service providers should specify the
period of notice (either in calendar days or working days) required for service
termination as well as other relevant terms and conditions. If customers
bound by different types of contracts are subject to different requirements of
period of notice, all details should be clearly and explicitly specified.
Relevant procedures to request for service termination – Where customers are
required to follow a standard procedure for service termination, such as filling
in service termination application form, returning certain equipment, etc., the
detailed procedures shall be explicitly set out.
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Appendix III
Comments Received on Service Performance Indicators and the TA’s Responses
(1) Complaint Handling Time
Proposal in the Consultation
Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
“Complaint” is defined as an
expression of dissatisfaction
with the service provider or
the service provided, received
from a user or a member of
the public by the service
provider.
NWT: Service provider
provides service and
satisfaction to its customers
and owes no particular duty to
members of the public.
Therefore the definition of
“complaint” should not include
“expression of dissatisfaction
from a member of the public”.
The TA does not subscribe to
NWT’s view. When a service
provider carries out sales and
marketing activities to the potential
customers or provides service to its
existing customers, it is possible that
the service provider may conduct
some behaviour which may cause
dissatisfaction from members of the
public. As a responsible service
provider, it should resolve the
complaints within a period of
pledged time. However, it should
be noted that so long as either one of
the criteria as set out in Appendix IV
is met, the complaint will be
regarded as having been “resolved”
by the service provider.
A complaint will be regarded
as having been “Resolved” by
the service provider when (i)
the complainant agrees that
all issues have been
satisfactorily dealt with; (ii)
the complaint is withdrawn;
OR (iii) the service provider
has completed all stages of its
internal complaint handling
procedures and has informed
the complainant accordingly.
HGC: The proposed definition
of complaint resolution, which
requires the complainant to
agree that all issues have been
satisfactorily dealt with, is
quite ambiguous. It would be
difficult to assess the service
provider’s performance based
on such ill-defined yardsticks,
and consumers would very
likely be misled.
It should be noted that a complaint
is regarded as having been resolved
under either one of the following
scenarios: (i) the complainant agrees
that all issues have been
satisfactorily dealt with; (ii) the
complaint is withdrawn; or (iii) the
operator has completed all stages of
its internal complaint handling
procedures and has informed the
complainant accordingly. As such,
even the complainant does not agree
that all issues have been
satisfactorily dealt with, the
complaint is still deemed as having
been resolved as long as the
operator has completed all stages of
its internal complaint handling
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procedures and has informed the
complainant accordingly, or the
complaint is simply withdrawn.
NWT: A complaint should be
regarded as resolved if the
operator cannot contact the
customer for investigation or
otherwise fails to obtain the
customer’s full cooperation in
an investigation.
Agrees. Please see Appendix IV
for the amendment made.
Law Society: When a major
fault occurs, customers might
not even be able to get
connected to the service
provider’s hotline to report the
fault. How can this “line
busy” situation be counted in
the calculation?
The TA agrees that the indicator
cannot capture those calls which
cannot get through to the service
provider’s hotline.
Complaint acknowledgement
time
IMS: Unnecessary since the
pledges and statistics on
complaint handling time appear
to be more meaningful to
consumers.
Customers would not feel satisfied
unless the complaint is resolved.
The TA agrees that statistics on
complaint handling time is much
more meaningful and important to
consumers, and therefore decides
not to include complaint
acknowledgement time as one of the
indicator. Please see Appendix IV
for the amendment made.
(2) Enquiry Call Answering Time
Proposal in the Consultation
Paper
Comments Received The TA’s Responses
HGC: The indicator depends on
a number of factors, e.g. no.
and scale of promotional
programmes offered to
customers within a certain
period of time. An average
figure would not give any
meaningful indication of the
service provider’s QoS. Any
statistics so published can be
misleading unless they are
From the consumers’ perspective,
the main concern would be how
long it would take for a service
provider to answer their enquiry
calls. They would not care
whether there are promotional
programmes being offered to
customers. In fact, if the service
providers foresee that the launch of
promotional programmes would
affect their performance on
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heavily and clearly qualified to
the extent necessary to explain
to consumers all relevant
factors which may have a
bearing on the “Answering
Time”.
answering enquiry calls, they should
consider arranging more staff to
answer the enquiry calls such that
the pledged service level would be
achieved.
If the service provider
operates an interactive voice
response system (“IVRS”) for
answering enquiry call, the
measurement of “Answering
Time” should commence
when the customer chooses
the option to talk to the
hotline operator.
IMS: It is unclear whether (i)
the time for a customer to wait
for getting connected to the
IVRS and (ii) the time used in
interacting with the IVRS,
should be considered as the
“Answering Time”.
The measurement of “answering
time” should commence when the
customer chooses the option to talk
to the hotline operator. As such,
the time for customer to wait for
getting connected to the IVRS and
the time used in interacting with the
IVRS would not be counted as the
“answering time”.
IMS: Will the call be counted
in the calculation if the
customer does not need to talk
to the hotline operator?
When the customers do not need to
talk to the hotline operator, they are
normally seeking information by
interacting with the IVRS and the
information would be made
available automatically. As such,
there is no point to include this type
of enquiry calls in the indicator.
Consumers would be more
concerned about the waiting time for
an operator to answer their calls.
In fact, according to the definition,
“enquiry call” covers the customer
interface with the hotline operator
on all issues. Therefore, if
customers do not need to talk to the
hotline operator, these calls should
not be counted. Amendment has
been made to the definition to
highlight this particular point.
Please refer to Appendix IV for the
amendment made.
IMS: If the customer waits too
long to get connected to the
IVRS and abandons the call,
will this call be included in the
total number of calls
abandoned?
Law Society: Sometimes,
customers might not be able to
Only those calls waiting to be
answered by a hotline operator
would be relevant to the calculation.
Since some customers waiting to get
connected to the IVRS do not need
to talk to the hotline operator, the
abandoned calls envisaged by IMS
should not be counted in the
calculation. On the other hand, if
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get connected to the service
provider’s hotline. How can
this “line busy” situation be
counted in the calculation?
the customer has chosen to talk to a
hotline operator and has waited too
long to be answered, and therefore
abandoned the call, this call should
be counted in the total number of
abandoned calls.
The TA agrees that the indicator
cannot capture those calls which
cannot get through to the service
provider’s hotline or IVRS.
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Appendix IV
Finalised Definitions and Calculation Methodology for
Service Performance Indicators
1. Complaint Handling Time
The indicator measures the performance of the service provider in resolving
complaints within the period of pledged time, i.e. performance pledge on
complaint handling time.
Definitions
“Complaint” is defined as an expression of dissatisfaction with the service
provider or the service provided, received from a user or a member of the
public by the service provider, whether or not the complainant has used any key
words such as “complaint” or the complainant's tone of voice is irate. The
dissatisfaction must be related to “non-performance of the contractual
agreement by service providers”. All complaints irrespective of the means by
which they were communicated (including telephone, fax, letter or email) shall
be included. It should be noted that a complaint should not be confused with a
query (a request for information) or with a fault report (when a customer is
reporting a service or equipment failure, etc.)
A complaint shall also be included irrespective of whether it is deemed by the
service provider to be justified, or whether it is satisfactorily processed at the
first point of contact. Complaint about how a fault has been handled should be
counted as a complaint, although the original fault report itself is not counted as
a complaint. A single complaint that involves several service issues requiring
different timeframes to process should nonetheless be counted as one complaint.
It should not be deemed to be resolved until all the individual issues are
themselves processed.
A complaint will be regarded as having been “Resolved” by the service
provider when:
� The complainant agrees that all issues have been satisfactorily dealt
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with;
� The complaint is withdrawn;
� The service provider has completed all stages of its internal complaint
handling procedures and has informed the complainant accordingly; or
� The operator cannot contact the customer for investigation or fails to
obtain the customer’s full cooperation in an investigation.
Calculation Methodology
The complaint handling time should be presumed to be roughly the same
regardless of the means by which the complaint was communicated to the
service providers.
% of complaints resolved within the pledged time during the period being
reported upon
= 100 * A / B
where
A = No. of complaints received during the period resolved within
the pledged time
B = Total number of complaints received during the period
2. Enquiry Call Answering Time
This indicator measures the performance of the service provider in fulfilling its
commitment in answering the enquiry call within the period of time pledged by
the service provider, i.e. performance pledge on enquiry call answering time.
Definitions
“Enquiry Call” covers the customer interface with the hotline operator on all
issues. If the customer can get all the required information by interacting with
the interactive voice response system (“IVRS”) and does not need to talk to
hotline operator, this call should not be counted in the calculation.
If the service provider operates an IVRS for answering enquiry call, the
measurement of “Answering Time” should commence when the customer
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chooses the option to talk to the hotline operator (i.e. the time for a customer
waiting to get connected to the IVRS or interacting with the IVRS would not be
counted as “Answering Time”). In the absence of an IVRS, the measurement
should start when the customer hears the first ringing tone.
Calculation Methodology
Some service providers may pledge different target times for answering
technical support enquiry call, customer service enquiry call and other types of
enquiry call. For those service providers who do not have separate pledges,
they can make a single pledge for answering all kinds of enquiry call.
Scenario 1 – The service provider has made different pledges for answering
different types of enquiry call
% of calls for a particular type of enquiry answered within the
pledged time during the period = 100 * A / (B+C)
where
A = Total number of calls for a particular type of enquiry
answered within the relevant pledged time during the period
B = Total number of calls for a particular type of enquiry
answered during the period
C = Total number of calls for a particular type of enquiry
abandoned during the period
Scenario 2 – The service provider has made a single pledge for answering all
types of enquiry call
% of enquiry calls answered within the pledged time during the
period
= 100 * A / (B+C)
where
A = Total number of enquiry calls answered within the pledged
time during the period
B = Total number of enquiry calls answered during the period
C = Total number of enquiry calls abandoned during the period
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Appendix V
Implementation Timetable for the
Publication of Performance Pledges and Statistics of Service KPIs
(For Service Providers Participating in the QoS Scheme on
Both Mandatory and Voluntary Basis)
First Year of Implementation
31 Jan 2005 - TA announces his final decisions on the QoS framework.
- The detailed definition and calculation methodology of the two
service KPIs are finalised.
- The list of the top four residential broadband service providers is
announced for the first year of implementation.
Feb – Mar 2005 - Voluntary participants are required to notify the TA before 15 Mar
2005 if they wish to have their service information and service KPIs
published on OFTA’s website in August 2005.
- Service providers to make preparation for collecting the required
statistics of the two service KPIs.
The 1st Quarter
Apr – Jun 2005
- Service providers to collect statistics of the service KPIs for the 1st
quarter.
31 Jul 2005 - Service providers to submit their performance pledges and statistics
of service KPIs for the 1st quarter to OFTA together with a letter
signed by the chief executive officer, directors or company secretary
of the company.
Aug 2005 - OFTA to publish the QoS comparison table on its website.
The 2nd Quarter
Jul – Sep 2005
- Service providers to collect statistics of the service KPIs for the 2nd
quarter.
31 Oct 2005 - Service providers to submit their performance pledges and statistics
of service KPIs for the 2nd
quarter to OFTA together with a letter
signed by the chief executive officer, directors or company secretary
of the company..
Nov 2005 - OFTA to update the QoS comparison table on its website.
The 3rd Quarter
Oct – Dec 2005
- Service providers to collect statistics of the service KPIs for the 3rd
quarter.
31 Jan 2006 - Service providers to submit their performance pledges and statistics
of service KPIs for the 3rd
quarter to OFTA together with a letter
signed by the chief executive officer, directors or company secretary
of the company.
Feb 2006 - OFTA to update the QoS comparison table on its website.
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The 4th Quarter
Jan - Mar 2006
- Service providers to collect statistics of the service KPIs for the 4th
quarter.
30 Apr 2006 - Service providers to submit their performance pledges and statistics
of service KPIs for the 4th
quarter to OFTA together with a letter
signed by the chief executive officer, directors or company secretary
of the company.
May 2006 - OFTA to update the QoS comparison table on its website.