Anatel committed itself to resolve within two weeks the issue involving the cut of mobile internet after the consumption of the franchise applied by the operators. This seems to be good news for customers who, since the end of 2014, have had data traffic interrupted by operators in the country.
Anatel is committed to solving the internet blocking case in two weeks. / © Anatel Portal
According to the vice president of Anatel, Marcelo Bechara de Souza Hobaika, the operators were wrong in the way they communicated to their customers about the new procedure. The company’s resolution that regulates consumer rights (Resolution 632/14-article 52) was not well interpreted by operators, who failed to alert their customers via SMS, 30 days before the cut. Regarding changes to the terms of consumer contracts, Marcel Bechara said:
«I needed to do (update the business model), but not in the way it was done. It was done wrong and we will have to find a way for the consumer to be well informed and know what is happening. The Ministries of Communications and Justice and Anatel are involved with the companies. We believe that in one week, two, we already have some measure of market consensus, involving the agents and now, perhaps, bringing to the table the parliamentarians themselves, Procon. debate that has to be done in an open and frank way as it was done here. «
On the other side are the commission’s parliamentarians, who promise a strong reaction against Anatel if the problem is not solved soon. According to Marcos Rotta (PMDB / Amazônia), the measure was taken with the objective of making feasible the demand and the financial investments of the operators that are losing more and more customers with voice plans for mobile internet users only.
Since the action to cut mobile internet was adopted by Brazilian operators, a wave of complaints and lawsuits have been moved by users dissatisfied with the way these rules came into force. We had already reported here on the website that, recently, PROCON in Rio de Janeiro filed a public injunction requesting clarification from operators about the new measures taken to cut consumption. With this statement from Anatel, now it seems that we will have a review of the decisions that led national operators to review contracts of what they identified as unlimited internet when they were sold.
As soon as new information appears, we will update this article.
And then, will this time Anatel go in defense of the consumer?
