OPTA Annual Report 2011 and Market Monitor

Mobile internet usage skyrocketed in 2011. Both the number of mobile voice & data plans as well as the amount of data used per plan are on the increase. In a time span of 12 months, the amount of bytes consumers send with their mobile devices has practically doubled. The number of mobile-phone plans in the Netherlands that have broadband data plans has increased by 60 percent. These are some of the findings OPTA reports in its 2011 Market Monitor, which is a part of the regulator’s 2011 Annual Report it released today. The 2011 Annual Report reveals that OPTA has imposed 27 fines and 4 orders subject to periodic penalty payments. Because of ongoing legal proceedings, OPTA is unable to disclose any of the fines. In 2011, approximately 134 people were employed with OPTA. These employees have taken 944 actions, preventing harm to competition or consumers. These actions varied from explaining regulations to issuing written warnings or imposing a fine.

Acting Chairman Mark de Jong reacts to the Annual Report’s release: ‘It is virtually impossible nowadays to imagine a world without internet. In addition, consumers increasingly use their mobile devices to go online. Trends such as these present new regulatory challenges to OPTA, for example, with regard to issues such as net neutrality, internet security, and protection of privacy. Sometimes these challenges call for active intervention, and sometimes for us having the courage to let go. For example, what we do in these kinds of situations is sit down with consumers and businesses.’

Market developments in 2011:
Mobile telephony. In 2011, the number of mobile-phone connections slightly increased, from 19.2 million at the end of 2010 to 19.8 million in the third quarter of 2011. In that same period, the number of mobile-phone plans with broadband data plans jumped from 5 million to almost 8.2 million. Data use has increased from 3.2 petabyte in the first half of 2010 to 5.9 petabyte in the first half of 2011. For the first time ever, OPTA observed a decrease in the number of SMS messages sent. Whereas almost 6 billion messages were sent in the second half of 2010, this number dropped to over 5.8 billion in the first half of 2011.

Fixed telephony. With the rise of mobile phones and internet, landlines have become less and less popular. Landline voice traffic decreased by roughly 5 percent, from 5.4 billion minutes in the third quarter of 2010 to over 5.1 billion minutes in the third quarter of 2011.

Television. In the third quarter of 2011, consumers had over 7.6 million television subscriptions. Digital television rose from 65 percent to 75 percent in 12 months time. The number of households with only analog television decreased in two years time from over 3 million to over 1.8 million. Last year, approximately 11 percent of households switched television providers.

Bundles. Seventy percent of households (5.2 million) combine two or more services from a single provider in a bundle. At the end of the first half of 2011, approximately 37 percent of households (over 2.7 million) had a triple-play bundle, which combines broadband internet access, fixed telephony and television. That number was 30 percent at the end of the first half of 2010. So in 12 months time, half a million households switched to triple play (cable, DSL or optic fiber).

Promoting competition
In 2011, OPTA set its regulatory regime for the period of 2012 through 2014 for fixed telephony, television, internet access, and business network services. Consumers are offered more and more choice with regard to telephony, internet and television. That is why OPTA rolled back the rules concerning KPN in the consumer market, and it decided not to take any action in the television market. In the business communication markets, however, market participants are to still dependent to such a degree on getting access to KPN’s national infrastructure that OPTA needs to impose strict rules on KPN. On top of that, OPTA put KPN under increased supervision at the end of 2011.

Consumer protection
ConsuWijzer. ConsuWijzer is the consumer information portal that is jointly operated by OPTA, the Netherlands Consumer Authority and the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa). Its website (ConsuWijzer.nl) had almost 2.3 million hits in 2011. Approximately 85,000 reports were filed about problems consumers had with product or service purchases. Almost a third of these complaints were telecommunication or postal-related. Most complaints involved consumer annoyance over telemarketing, followed by complaints about mobile-phone plans and bundles.

Telemarketing and spam. The category that topped the list of telemarketing complaints in 2011 was lotteries (26 percent), followed by energy suppliers (16 percent), and telephony & television (14 percent). The fines OPTA imposed in 2011 totaled more than EUR 1 million for violations of telemarketing regulations. Fines were imposed on, among other organizations, energy suppliers E.ON and NUON, call center L&H Customer Contact, the umbrella organization for Dutch charities Goede Doelen Loterijen, and companies Sell-it and ALL4Call. ALL4Call was additionally fined for sending spam messages. On its special website on spam ( www.spamklacht.nl), OPTA received 27,371 complaints about unsolicited emails, fax and SMS messages. OPTA in 2011 imposed spam-related fines totaling more than EUR 2 million.

Abuse related to premium-rate numbers (090x-numbers). OPTA in 2011 had nine 0900-numbers (general purpose) taken off the air within a day after it started receiving reports indicating abuse. In addition, OPTA revoked several 0906-numbers (adult entertainment) because of the risk these numbers were used for making scam calls.