About two years later Advice on key points On Wednesday, the Federal Network Agency put out for consultation a draft general decree on planned reduction rules for mobile internet access. According to Amendments to the Telecommunications Act (TKG) of 2021 Consumers have the right to reduce monthly payments if internet performance is lower than the contract guarantees. For landlines The regulatory authority set out rules for this at the end of 2021. Now the requirements for compensation should be more concrete, even if the speed in mobile communication is very low.
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The Federal Network Agency maintains central values from key points. In principle, deductions should be used to determine relevant deviations from the contractually agreed service. In urban areas there may be as per the new draft (PDF) A reduction of up to 75 per cent of the maximum download and upload speed actually promised will be tolerable before compensation payment becomes payable to affected consumers. The deviation is likely to be 85 per cent in semi-urban areas and 90 per cent in rural areas.
The Federal Network Agency still justifies these proposed “differentiated exemptions” by saying that proving a lack of performance in mobile communications is much more complicated than in fixed networks because a contract is not fulfilled in a fixed location. What is important is how powerful the providers’ networks are in different areas. “In addition, mobile communications are a so-called shared medium in which users share a locally available service,” the authority writes.
Despite the huge discounts, the higher bandwidths serve as a benchmark
Urban and rural areas should be divided into 300-metre grids to do justice to local conditions and reflect network expansion in the best possible way. According to the regulator, taking into account the often agreed maximum speed of several hundred Mbit/s, despite the planned discounts in favour of network operators, “higher data transfer rates” still result for most consumers.
A supplementary statement says that, like the landline network, 30 measurements should be necessary to be able to prove a deficiency Draft Handout. Measurements in mobile communications should be extended over five calendar days with six measurements per calendar day. If the contractually specified estimated maximum bandwidth, reduced by the planned discount, is not reached on at least three of the five measurement days, the speed deviates significantly.
All interested parties have until July 12 to submit their comments in writing. In parallel with finalizing the specifications, the authority says it is continuing to work on mobile phone measurement equipment to detect poor performance. The aim is to enable consumers to check and prove whether the quality of mobile communications actually corresponds to that agreed in the contract.
