PRESS RELEASE: Monitoring Report No.12/2020

Prague, 15 December 2020 – December Monitoring Report informs about the preparation of an independent comparison tool as required by Section 66a of the Electronic Communications Act. Other topics are increase in prices of selected services for customers with contracts of Czech Post with effect from 1 January 2021, and CTU’s competence in the resolution of subscriber disputes concerning porting the telephone number to another provider of electronic communications services during a billing period. We also inform about the amended General Authorisation for operation of user's terminals of electronic communications radio networks and about calls via Wi-Fi, which could be used as an alternative for calls out of the range of mobile network signal.

CTU in cooperation with a contractor continues to prepare its own price and quality comparison tool in order to increase transparency and comparability of services for consumers. Simultaneously with the comparison tool, CTU is also preparing a decree to determine the scope, form and manner of how the operators should hand over the information for the purposes of operating this tool. CTU wants to make the comparison tool available for mobile services from February 2021.

After public consultation, launched by the CTU in November, CTU Council decided to issue the General Authorisation No. VO-R/1/12.2020-12 for the operation of user's terminals of electronic communications radio networks. The reason for an update is in particular a need to adjust the 3400 – 3800 MHz frequency band parameters and bring them in compliance with the conditions of the relevant part of the Radio Spectrum Utilisation Plan, in order to allow user´s terminals to be operated in the deployed networks after the auction ends, and also to adjust 24 – 27 GHz frequency band parameters, where 5G networks are expected to be used in the future.

In case you are out of the range of a mobile network and you need to call someone, you can use Voice over Wi-Fi. In the Czech Republic, this service is now offered by all three mobile operators, as an alternative for cases when you are not within range of their mobile network. This is a relatively significant difference from another solution called Voice over LTE (abbreviated VoLTE), which is often confused with Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) services. Voice over LTE uses LTE operator´s network for voice transmission – and for this option the caller must be within range of the operator’s mobile network signal.

The Monthly Monitoring Report  No. 12/2020 is available here.

Pres Unit
Czech Telecommunication Office