Code of Practice for Telecommunications Service Contracts

Preamble

As the telecommunications service provider, we commit to enhance our customer satisfaction in respect of the provision of telecommunications services. We implement and reference the terms and contents from OFCA (Office of the Communications Authority) and another public associations like CAHK (Communications Association of Hong Kong), to form this Code of Practices (CoP). ACME will use our reasonable endeavors to follow the practices stated in this Code of Practice to enhance our service quality for our customers. This Code of Practice represents a minimum set of practices and service providers who adopt this Code of Practice may choose to include other provisions which are not inconsistent with this Code of Practice.

Definition

In this Code of Practice

“bill cycle” means each consecutive period of time in respect of which the customer will be billed for use of telecommunications service in that period under a contract;

“bill cycle date” means a particular day in a month assigned by the service provider that each bill cycle starts;

“contract” means a contract between a service provider and a customer

“Contract Service Charges” means all fees or charges (except Other Charges) payable by customer for the telecommunications services

“date” means a particular day, expressed as a numbered day in a named calendar month in a numbered calendar year;

“day(s)” means calendar day(s);

 

General

Service providers who adopt this Code of Practice will state so on their respective websites.

 

Style, format and structure of written contracts

 A written contract for the provision of telecommunications services to customers:

must be written in plain language and appear in legible print;

mainly and legally by English, customer is able to request ACME to translate the Chinese language and arrange the    presentation as the reference information with reasonable time and efforts.

must use a print font size of at least 9 point for the body text, footnotes and remarks, and must have  adequate

contrast with the background.

The principal contract document (for the main service with or without other services) must contain the following features  and display them prominently:

the name of the company which the customer is contracting with in respect of the provision of all the main    telecommunications services covered by the contract (which for the avoidance of doubt, does not include the names

of the suppliers of the customer equipment and content services);

the name of the customer which the company is contracting with;

the specific service elements that the customer has subscribed to at the time the particular contract was entered into    including essential ancillary services, value-added services, or customer equipment, whether a charge for the

individual element is made or not;

clearly identified Contract Service Charges, being all fees or charges (except Other Charges) payable by customer for    the telecommunications services expressly subscribed pursuant to the contract, including:

(i)     any deposit amount and the circumstances when the deposit is refundable or may be applied by the service               provider;

(ii)    any prepayment amount and the circumstances when the prepayment is refundable or is to be off set from the               charges;

(iii)   any waivable charges and the circumstances when the waivable charges may apply;

(iv)   all service establishment and/or installation charges;

(v)    any subsequent charges if the customer’s usage exceeds the service entitlement included in the Contract               Service Charges;

specified common categories of Other Charges; i.e administrative charges (being lost and replacement charges) and    usage based charges/rates (such as IDD, roaming, international SMS) and where information on such charges/rates    can be obtained (e.g. hotline) and, in the case of a contract with a fixed term, whether such charges/rates will be

subject to change during the term;

specified customer’s service entitlement in respect of Contract Service Charges;

specified arrangements for termination of contract by customers and charges, if any, which may apply to termination

or early termination;

specified arrangements for extension of term and renewal of the term of the contract or replacement of the contract;

the terms and conditions of the contract that can be changed unilaterally by the service provider, and the

arrangements for any such change to be implemented;

the arrangements which the service provider must make available for customers, without undue cost or

inconvenience to them, to return any customer equipment upon the expiry, termination or cancellation of the contract;

for service provided in respect of particular locations, arrangements for customers to request the service to be

relocated to other locations, and the arrangements when the relocation is not feasible;

 

Contracts other than in writing

A customer shall have the choice whether to accept and use a free-trial service. Where the free-trial service may become chargeable after the free-trial period expires, the service provider shall explain to the customer any arrangements for opting out when the free-trial service is offered and it must not put the customer to inconvenience or involve him/her incurring any cost in respect to exercising the opt-out request. This Code applies to services provided after the free-trial period.

 

Cooling-off period for unsolicited contracts

The unsolicated contract and statement has to provide and list in detail of the terms and condition including the price.

 

Expiry of Contract with a Fixed Term

Contracts with a fixed term must comply with the following requirements:

the contract must state the target commencement date of the term and the duration of the term

the contract must list the auto-renew terms and condition

 

Termination by Customer

Contracts must provide customers with a right of termination after the service end, which includes the following features:

service provider should provide the effective contact for customer inquiry of termination procedure.

the service contract should provide the termination notice period, let say 1-3 months or more times before service end, depending on the agreeable contract that made by service provider and customer.

the arrangements for termination must not cause inconvenience to customers or involve unreasonable delay or involve them incurring anything other than incidental costs reasonably and properly incurred in effecting the notice.

 

Renewal of the service

The contract must clearly list if there is any renewal cost, limitation, terms and conditions

The renewal confirmation must have the consents from customer unless the service agreement listed the auto-renew terms.

It is because telecommunication is usually critical service that no one would expect the service suddenly disconnect, so that the auto-renew terms can help customer to reduce the administration resource such as delay in avoiding the interruption of its operation. However, ACME, at the service beginning before contract confirmation, must accept customer to remove this terms.

 

Return of Customer Equipment to Service Provider

Where customer equipment provided to the customer by the service provider is required to be returned upon the expiry, termination or cancellation of the contract, the contract must specify the manner in which the customer equipment is to be returned by the customer which must not put customers to inconvenience or involve their incurring anything other than incidental costs reasonably and properly incurred in effecting the return.