The Consumers Foundation yesterday urged service providers to ensure they deliver all the features of high-quality broadband Internet service and 3G mobile Internet connections that they tout in their commercials.
The foundation made the call in response to escalating complaints from consumers over slow Internet connections, citing its statistics for the past decade, which showed that the most consumer disputes every year had to do with telecommunications.
The Convener of the foundation’s Telecommunications Committee, Hsiang Tien-ruey (項天瑞), said that the two most frequent complaints received in telecommunications cases were about slow and unstable Internet connections.
Photo: Yang Chiu-ying, Taipei Times
According to Consumers’ Foundation deputy secretary-general Teng Wei-chung (鄧惟中), consumers complained that they received only 10M bandwidth after paying for 100M bandwidth.
They added that service providers, when confronted about the matter, merely responded by saying that “connection speed cannot be promised” appeared in the service contract’s small print.
Saying that many service providers gave the reason for their insufficient bandwidth as that they had too many users, Consumers’ Foundation secretary-general David Chen (陳智義) said: “If so, the companies should wait until their infrastructures have been upgraded before they advertise and take on more users.”
The foundation singled out Chunghwa Telecom, which they said controls “the last mile” that determines the connection speed between Internet service providers and their clients’ households.
It also urged the National Communications Commission to strictly enforce its monitoring role by forcing companies to improve the quality of their service in order to better protect consumers’ rights.
In response, Chunghwa Telecom said quality of service involved many variables such as clients’ software, their hardware or computer models and online network connections.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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