Telecom Advisors 15 years

Telecom advisors celebrate 15 years

Telecoms
Since 2006, the Telecoms Advisors have been advising consumers on telecoms contracts. The organization, owned by IT&Telekomföretagen, has for 15 years driven improvements in the telecom market, monitored how laws and regulations have changed, created change where there are shortcomings and kept the industry and consumers updated on new decisions in the General Complaints Board.

With the aim of making consumers better consumers and operators better operators, the Telecom Advisors have received over 113,000 cases during these 15 years, while the market has moved from dial-up internet via modems to fiber connections at virtually the speed of light.

- "A recurring challenge is that it is a market with extremely rapid development and that we must always be one step ahead to ensure that problems are avoided," says Mattias Grafström, CEO of the Swedish Association of Telecommunications Companies.

In 2007, the Telecom Advisors created their first code of conduct to counter rogue sales and rogue operators. All operators that are members of the Telecoms Advisors have committed to comply with these rules, which go beyond current legislation and can be considered "good practice" in the telecoms industry. The Code of Conduct has been continuously revised as new problems and situations have arisen.

In 2011, the Telecom Advisors started an ongoing cooperation with the Swedish Enforcement Authority and the operators to counteract indebtedness, especially for young people, for subscriptions linked to mobile services.

In 2011, the Telecoms Advisors also started to act as a contact point in the event of TV interference during the roll-out of 4G mobile services. Free filters to remedy the interference are sent out to consumers.

In 2015, the 'Action plan against rogue telemarketing' was presented to tackle a growing problem of rogue operators. The Action Plan has resulted in the disappearance of a large number of these operators from the market.

In 2015, the problem of coverage that did not live up to operators' promises was also highlighted. Since then, it has become much easier for consumers to check coverage before signing up for mobile services.

In 2017, the mandate of the Telecom Advisors was extended to include questions and complaints about fiber connections.

In 2019, the Telecoms Advisors initiated a project to tackle the growing problem of spoofing. A method was developed to make this type of fraud technically more difficult.

In 2020, Telekområdgivarna was identified as the Swedish actor with the best consumer information in the telecom field. The organization is one of only three Swedish actors, which is not a government agency, that is included in the EU-wide portal Single Digital Gateway, which provides national information to other EU citizens who, for example, want to move to or study in Sweden.

After the 15-year discharge on October 11, work will continue until the market is in a situation where consumers are free from rogue traders, misleading sellers, unclear contracts and poor complaint handling.