Monthly Monitoring Report 03/2022: Looking back to 2021; unilateral contract amendments; tender for postal licence holder

Prague, 15 March 2022 - We begin our March monitoring report with a look back at the CTU's activities in 2021. That year was primarily marked by preparations for the so-called transposition amendment to the Electronic Communications Act, the launch of our own comparison and measurement tool, market analyses and, of course, inspection activities. We also bring an article on the conditions for unilateral changes to contracts, details of the announced tender for the postal licence holder or the proposed temporary regulation of the wholesale market.

The past year has seen the adoption of an important and long-awaited transposition amendment to the Electronic Communications Act, which improves the position of consumers, imposes some new obligations on undertakings and entails a number of new implementing regulations, which the Office has been tasked to prepare.

We also allocated frequencies from the 5G auction, addressed consumer protection issues, not only by placing more emphasis on education and inspection of undertakings, especially in terms of information on the quality of services provided, but also by launching tools to help consumers navigate important issues - the price and quality comparison tool and the NetTest measurement tool.

Concerning activities in the postal market, 2021 was primarily a year of review of the way and quality of provision of basic postal services. This is a necessary step for the follow-up to the launch of the tender for a new postal licence holder, which was announced at the beginning of last week.

CTU welcomes the new legislation, effective from the New Year, which places emphasis on a more transparent form of notification of unilateral contract changes by providers - the law now explicitly defines the requirement for clear and understandable communication of this information to subscribers. This is in line with the CTU's long-standing view that it is essential that the information about the change in contractual terms and conditions included in the billing is presented in a clear and transparent manner, ideally on the first page of the billing, so that these essential details are already clear to customers at a glance.

Press Unit
Czech Telecommunication Office
Tereza Meravá