Italian consumers are less and less satisfied with the telecommunication and postal services due to: termination of the contracts, loss of parcels, cancellations, change of operators, disputed invoices, suspension of services, poor quality of services, such as: pay TV, ADSL coverage, postal products and postal banking products. These are the main complaints from citizens on telecommunications and postal services.
Telecommunication services
Even this year, the telecommunication sector is second in the ranking of reports received at Cittadinanzattiva with a percentage of 25.1% out of a total of 9,583 data.
The main concern is still the landline with 56%. In particular, consumers were concerned about problems related to the termination of the contract and the costs of decommissioning and/or penalties (25.6%), changing operators (19.3%) and disputed invoices (13.4%).
Instead, reports on mobile telecommunications (tablets and smartphones) had an 11% increase compared to 2012. The most critical issues are: bills (total :50.2%; which increased compared to 2012), termination of the contracts (an increase of 6.4%) and contractual issues (15.5%). Amongst the mobile network operators, H3G ranks first with 71.7%, followed by Tim (14.5%), Vodafone and Wind with 6.4%. The sharp increase of complaints against H3G is due to the high costs of normal SMS and premium SMS.
Internet services
Just like last year, the most significant issues affecting the internet services are: ADSL with 33.3%, poor quality of service (28.9%) and change of operators (15.6%). When comparing companies, Telecom occupies the first place (42.4%) followed by Wind-Infostrada (21.2%), then with Teletu, Fastweb and Vodafone with 9.1% and lastly, Tiscali with 6.1%.
Television services
4% out of 9,583 reports refer to the television, particularly the Pay TV (90%), as citizens complain about the contracts and the termination of services.
Postal services
Reports concerning postal services represent 2.5% of the total of 9,583. In particular the postal products (70%) such as correspondence (51%) and the shipping of parcels through Poste Italiane (49%). Following are complaints about the products of Banco Posta (30%), in particular investment or savings products (26.3%), and credit cards (36.8%).
Recommendations:
Drawn from the analysis on the telecommunications sector, Cittadinanzattiva proposes to: ensure equal access and fair prices to services and digital products throughout the European Union; redefine strategies and areas of competence of the Agcom (the National Telecommunication Agency); establish a fund for consumers in case of extraordinary events and lastly, push on the topic of the Digital Agenda.
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