On the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day, which is celebrated today 15 March 2021, we recall the main initiatives carried out by ANACOM in 2020, with the aim of protecting the rights of consumers of communications.
The pandemic has made the need to promote greater competition in the electronic communications market more pressing, to help users obtain maximum benefit in terms of choice, price and quality of service, to encourage the effective and efficient use of spectrum, as well as as well as promoting social, economic and territorial cohesion.
In this context, ANACOM has promoted specific consumer protection initiatives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic:
- we disseminated good practices for the use of electronic communications networks and services and warned of the increase in COVID-19-related fraud and cyber attacks ;
- we published a practical guide to answer the main questions of communications consumers, which we keep up to date;
- we made available on the Consumer Portal a thematic area on the pandemic of COVID-19 with relevant and useful information on exceptional measures approved by the Government, Parliament and service providers;
- we proposed an exceptional and temporary regime of measures to protect customers of electronic communications services and sent the Assembly of the Republic a proposal to reinforce the protection of electronic communications users ;
- and we regularly monitor electronic communications and parcel traffic .
In October, we launched tem.REDE? , an application that provides information on the coverage of the networks of the operators MEO, NOS and VODAFONE, allowing any user to know where the operators have coverage to provide mobile services of “Voice, SMS and MMS” and mobile Internet in the national territory .
No âmbito da implementação do 5G em Portugal disponibilizámos, em dezembro, o Portal 5G, cujo objetivo é permitir que todos, cidadãos, empresas, academia, municípios, entre outros, possam ter acesso a informação sobre as características e potencialidades da 5.ª geração móvel, bem como sobre a evolução da adoção desta tecnologia em Portugal. Ainda nesta temática, a ANACOM procedeu à divulgação de um estudo que avalia o impacto do 5G, em termos de exposição da população em geral aos campos eletromagnéticos, sendo que as medições efetuadas revelaram que os equipamentos em ensaio estavam a funcionar segundo os requisitos técnicos adequados e os valores estavam mais de 50 vezes abaixo dos níveis de referência.
ANACOM will always continue, within the scope of its competences, to promote initiatives and adopt measures that protect the rights of consumers of communications.