Proposition 54K2558

Projet de loi portant dispositions diverses en matière de communications électroniques.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

June 26, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive consumer protection telecommunications transmission network

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PP VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE DéFI PVDA | PTB

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

July 19, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur is Mr Dedecker. He refers to his written report.

Mr. Speaker, with regard to this bill, in which it is found that there are limits to be put in the fight against the sometimes abusive practices of certain telecommunications service providers, I welcome, as far as we are concerned, the progress made for consumers in this project. However, the Mediation Service’s 2015 Annual Report makes it clear that “operators abuse the complete discontinuation of the service to put consumers under pressure to pay disputed amounts regarding third-party services.” From now on, any service interruption applied by an operator as a result of a non-payment will remain limited to the service concerned.

However, the government does not provide the means to meet its goal of avoiding a too brutal shutdown of these essential online services, such as internet banking and e-government. Increased digitization of the company has increased the end-user problem caused by a sudden shutdown of key online services. Some people find themselves in an infernal spiral where a failure to pay results in a complete disruption of fixed internet services.

These people then have difficulty accessing services such as e-government or their homebanking and thus fall deeper into digital poverty. In this case of non-payment, it is therefore planned that operators reduce the speed of the Internet and set a legal minimum level before coming to completely disrupt the fixed Internet services. Therefore, the operator must first warn and then place the subscriber in question.

However, the proposed minimum speed is 256 kb/s set by the government. However, it does not correspond to the speed required to access essential online services. The IBPT already proposed in 2013 a speed of 512 kb/s to allow access to services likely to be needed for social integration, i.e. browsing the Internet, the search for a job that is still an important step, e-commerce, e-government, e-mail, access to social networks.

Therefore, I submitted an amendment seeking to double the minimum speed from 256 to 512 kb/s, as proposed by the Mediation Service.

If you allow me, the expression, 512 kb/s, is not Peru! This is a speed slow enough to encourage users to comply with their payment obligation. It is obviously not, with 512 kb/s, to watch videos or movies on Netflix. But this would allow someone to pay their payments on their homebanking, for example, and thus be able to pay their bills in a faster way.

I propose, with my amendment, to allow a double use compared to what the bill currently provides. This speed corresponds to what the mediation service mentions in an annual report. This will allow you to complete your tax declaration on time. This internet speed is sufficient to allow everyone the minimum use of this service.

Mr. Speaker, this is what I wanted to say. I have announced and justified the amendment that I will introduce on behalf of the CDH group.

I do not know if this requires you to react.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister in charge of telecommunications has asked me to simply indicate that the draft law is actually intended to improve a number of laws on a number of points in the interest of the consumer and the government itself. This is included in the draft that will be subsequently put to the vote.