Zhejiang Calls for Third-Party Monitoring of Telecom Billing
Qianjiang Evening News, 3/27/13
On March 26, the standing committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress held a session to discuss a draft plan for "Zhejiang Province Regulations on the Management and Oversight of Metering," drafted by the provincial Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision. The draft calls for third-party organizations to be brought onboard for telecommunications metering equipment testing.
Currently, telecommunications authorities use time-based metering and billing for telephone calls. With the exception of public telephones, which are subject to mandatory inspection by the Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, metering and inspections are undertaken by organizations subsidiary to the telecommunications authorities themselves, raising clear conflict of interest questions. A research report from the Zhejiang Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision found that the current state of affairs could provide operators with an incentive to doctor billing figures in order to charge customers more — a common source of complaints about telecom operators.
In response to the Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision's suggestion of using third-party monitoring, the Zhejiang Communications Administration said that opening communications billing equipment to inspection could have effects on telecommunications network security, and might lead to invasions of subscriber privacy.
Keywords: wireless telecom third-party monitoring Zhejiang Communications Administration regulation tariffs
Sending
