A broadband service provider has been fined HK$130,000 for imposing service restrictions on heavy users who subscribed to its 'unlimited usage' packages. This follows complaints to the telecommunications regulator in January and February from more than 100 CSL users who said their services had slowed down. They said the company had unilaterally revised its fair-use policy, which was a violation of the supposedly unlimited mobile broadband packages they had bought. Some had been persuaded by CSL to upgrade to a more expensive package to get faster service. After a five-month investigation, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority found that the practice had breached the Telecommunications Ordinance. The office said CSL had defended itself by saying its traffic statistics showed that more than half its bandwidth was used up by about 5 per cent of its customers. The company said yesterday it had already modified its policy in February in response to customer complaints and now slowed down the speed only of those identified as 'extremely heavy users', without saying how they were identified. 'The fair usage policy has been adopted by the whole sector for many years,' a spokeswoman said. 'The policy is to ensure service quality to normal users is not undermined by heavy users who overload the network and slow down the broadband speed of others. So we still need to have some measures to protect customers' normal use.' But the Consumer Council said service providers had an obligation to disclose in detail any limitations on their services. The council received 6,087 complaints against providers in the first eight months of this year and more than 9,000 for the whole of last year. Among them was one from a woman who wanted to change her fixed-line service provider after she had used the service for four years. But she discovered that the company had renewed her contract without her knowledge and then charged her an early termination fee of HK$500. The council did not name the company involved in the case. The telecommunications authority in February issued a voluntary code of practice for communications service contracts under which companies should not automatically renew contracts without the consent of customers. But Ambrose Ho Pui-him, chairman of the council's publicity and community relations committee, said it was too early to judge its effectiveness. 'We will continue to monitor and check whether the sector will be self-disciplined and comply with the code and make public our observations to put pressure on the companies,'' Ho said. Bad business One internet service provider renewed a woman's contract without her knowledge and when she wanted to end it, charged her, in HK dollars: $500
