Measure of the Telecommunications Office of the Slovak Republic No. O-5/2004 of April 22, 2004, laying down particulars on quality indicators and target values, including particulars of the form, extent, content, and form of disclosure of information


Measure of the Telecommunications Office of the Slovak Republic No. O-5/2004 of April 22, 2004, laying down particulars on quality indicators and target values, including particulars of the form, extent, content, and form of disclosure of information

The Telecommunications Office of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter “Office”) pursuant to Article 51, Paragraph 4 of Act No. 610/2003 Z.z. on electronic communications herewith establishes quality indicators and target values in universal service that are specified in annex No. 1.

Article 1

1. The term for a first connection starts to elapse when the company that provides universal service (hereinafter “company”) receives an order and ends when the service is put into operation and available for use; all days are reckoned into this term.
2. The term for a first connection relates to
1. the installation of the first access line,
2. taking over an existing access line by another customer,
3. providing an additional access line to a customer who already has a service, including a change of an analog telephone line to ISDN.
3. The term for a first connection does not apply to
1. cancellation of an order,
2. change of a company by the customer, if the new company that is responsible for reporting the term of the first connection uses a freed local line as access line
4. The company shall announce and disclose information about
1. terms within which 95 percent or 99 percent of orders are completed in the shortest time, whereby it can exclude cases when a later connection is requested by the customer,
2. the number of orders satisfied within the term agreed-upon with the customer expressed in percent.
5. The company may exclude from information pursuant to Paragraph 4 instances when access is required to premises of the customer and the customer has not provided such access in an agreed-upon term.

Article 2

1. Fault rate per customer line is the share of justified reported faults registered during collection of data on the average number of access lines in the network or on the average number of registration of one service that was taken into account during data collection.
2. A fault report is a report about an interruption or worsened quality of service reported by a customer, if the interruption or worsened quality was caused in the network of the company or another connected public network, if it turned out to be substantiated. An interruption or worsened quality of service does not cover faults on the side of the customer that are located beyond the defined or agreed-upon interface point.
3. Average number of access lines is calculated using the formula in annex No. 2.

Article 3

1. Time necessary to remove a fault begins to elapse from the moment the fault is reported at the disclosed contact point of the company until the moment when the service is returned to operational state.
2. The company announces and discloses information about the shortest time during which 80 percent or 95 percent is repaired of
1. substantiated reported faults on access lines expressed in hours,
2. all other substantiated reported faults expressed in hours.
3. Announcements and disclosure of information pursuant to Paragraph 2 relates to data when standard time of repair is offered to a customer.
4. Announcements and disclosure of information pursuant to Paragraph 2 does not relate to data when the company agrees with the customer that it will provide
1. faster repair for higher maintenance fees,
2. later repaid for lower maintenance fees.

Article 4

1. An unsuccessful attempt to make a telephone call is a call to a valid dialed number following a dialing tone whereby not evaluated is a busy tone of the dialed customer, a control ring tone, or an answering signal of the called customer on the access line of the calling customer within 30 seconds from the moment when the network received the required information about the address to establish the connection.
2. The company will announce and disclose information about
1. unsuccessful calls from national calls expressed in percent,
2. unsuccessful calls from international calls expressed in percent,
3. number of observations performed for each value.
3. The share of unsuccessful calls is the share of unsuccessful calls from the total number of attempted calls during a quarter. The share of unsuccessful calls shall be calculated
1. from measurements of entire regular operation, or
2. from measurements of regular operation for outgoing calls of a representative sample of customers connected to local exchanges to a representative sample of target locations, or
3. from test calls of a representative sample of customers connected to local exchanges or to terminal points of a network to a representative sample of target locations, or
4. a combination of methods pursuant to Letters a) to c).
4. The company will perform the measurements to precisely express changes in communication during a day, during a week, and during a year.

Article 5

1. The time to establish a connection begins to elapse from the moment the network receives required information about the address to establish the connection until the moment when the calling customer received a busy tone of the called customer, a ring tone, or an answer tone of the called customer. When signaling with overlay is used, the time to establish a connection starts to elapse from the moment when sufficient information was received on the address that enables to start routing a call in the network.
2. Signaling with overlay is a procedure that is used to establish a connection for outgoing calls, enabling the user to send numbers of the calling customer in successive messages as the customer gradually dials them.
3. The company announces and discloses information about
1. the average time needed to establish a connection for national calls expressed in seconds,
2. the time during which 95 percent of the fastest national calls are connected expressed in seconds,
3. the average value of establishing a connection for international calls expressed in seconds,
4. the time during which 95 percent of the fastest international calls are connected expressed in seconds,
5. the number of observations performed for national and international calls.
4. Calls evaluated as unsuccessful are excluded from information pursuant to Paragraph 3. Calls to migrated numbers are included in the information.
5. Data specified in Paragraph 3 are calculated:
1. from measurements of regular operation for outgoing calls, or
2. from measurements of regular operation for outgoing calls of a representative sample of customers connected to local exchanges to a representative sample of target locations, or
3. from test calls of a representative sample of customers connected to local exchanges or to terminal points of a network of a representative sample of target locations, or
4. a combination of methods pursuant to Letters a) to c).
6. The company will perform the measurements to precisely express changes in communication during a day, during a week, and during a year.

Article 6

1. The time to answer a call to the information service about telephone numbers starts to elapse from the moment the network receives requested information about the address to establish a connection until the time the operator answers the call, or an equivalent voice activated automated answering system that provides to the calling customer the requested information about a telephone number of customers in the Slovak Republic.
2. The company announces and discloses information about
1. the average time to answer a call by the information service about telephone numbers expressed in seconds,
2. the share of calls answered within 20 seconds expressed in percent.

Article 7

1. Coin public payphones, card public payphones, or coin and card public payphones are deemed operational when a customer can use offered services that are usually accessible. A public payphone that accepts payments by coins as well as a card is deemed out of service also when it is incapable of accepting any more coins.
2. The company shall announce and disclose information about the number of operational public payphones expressed in percent. The number of operational public payphones is calculated as the ratio of the total number of days during which a public payphone is in service to the whole number of days during which the public payphone should be in service. Deemed a day during a public payphone is in service is a day when the public payphone is in uninterrupted service.

Article 8

1. A protest of a phone bill is a complaint by a customer regarding an examination of a payment billed by the company.
2. The company will announce and disclose information about the number of bills toward which customers made their protest against correctness of the billed payment expressed in percent. The information includes all protests against correctness of the billed payments received during a quarter, regardless whether they were justified, time of a call, or any another circumstance that is the subject of protest.

Article 9

1. The company announces to the office half-year statistical overviews of achieved target values of quality indicators in electronic and printed form always for the preceding two quarters by January 31 and by July 31. The company discloses a half-year statistical overview of achieved target values of indicators at its Internet web site and in at least one national periodical.
2. The company will announce to the office the first half-year statistical overview of achieved target values of quality indicators electronic and printed form by January 31, 2005.

Article 10

This measure becomes effective on May 1, 2004.

Milan Luknár
Chairman

Annex 1 to Measure No. O-5/2004

Quality Indicator                                                                                         Target Value

1. Term for the first connection
a) term of fastest 95%                                                                                        30 days
b) term of fastest 99%                                                                                        70 days
c) percentage of orders processed within a term agreed with the customer      95 %
2. Fault rate per subscriber line
a) number of faults per 100 access lines per year                                               20
3. Time necessary to repair a fault
a) time during which 80% of the fastest faults is repaired on access lines         30 hours
b) time during which 95% of the fastest faults is repaired on access lines         96 hours
c) time during which 80% of the fastest all other faults is repaired                     24 hours
d) time during which 95% of the fastest all other faults is repaired                    36 hours
4. Unsuccessful connections
a) percentage of unsuccessful national calls in regular operation                        4 %
b) percentage of unsuccessful international calls in regular operation                 6 %
5. Time to establish a connection
a) average time for outgoing national calls in regular operation                           3 s
b) time during which 95% of the fastest national connections                                                  are established in regular operation                                                                    10 s
c) average time for outgoing international calls in real operation                          5 s
d) time during which 95% of the fastest international connections are                                  established in regular operation                                                                           15 s
6. Time to answer a call by the information service about telephone numbers
a) average time to answer a call                                                                            20 s
b) percentage of calls answered within 20 s                                                          85 %
7. Operational public payphones using coins, public payphones using                                   cards,and public payphones using both coins and cards
a) percentage of public payphones in full operation                                               92 %
8. Protest against correctness of billing
a) percentage of protested bills from the total number of bills                               1 %

Annex No. 2 to Measure No. O – 5/2004

Formula for the calculation of the average number of access lines
ps vzorec
In the formula:

PS = average number of access lines
Si = number of access lines at the end of the month
n = number of months during which the data was gathered