Press release
Minister Bruton announces increased supports from telecoms providers during COVID-19
From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications
Published on
Last updated on
The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton TD, today (Wednesday 15 April 2020) announced that all major telecoms providers have committed to a number of measures to help people stay in touch and work from home during COVID-19.
All major providers have signed up, including BT Ireland, eir, Pure Telecom, Sky Ireland, Tesco Mobile Ireland, Three Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland and Vodafone.
Minister Bruton said:
"Now more than ever, people are relying on online services to stay in touch with family, friends and work colleagues. These commitments will make sure that all major providers are responding to this increased reliance, providing extra capacity where needed and ensuring people have the services they need to stay connected. These are common commitments and some operators may choose to offer extra services to their customers."
The COVID-19 Consumer Commitments are as follows:
1. Any fixed broadband customers who do not have unlimited usage already as standard will be given the opportunity, if they require, to upgrade their package (which may be on a temporary basis), with their current service provider
2. Any customer who does not have fixed broadband and who relies solely on mobile access to the Internet will have the opportunity to avail of affordable unlimited mobile data access/package from their service provider
3. Fair usage policies will not be automatically applied to unlimited fixed and mobile data packages
4. Service providers may implement appropriate permitted traffic management measures to avoid network congestion
5. Access to healthcare and educational resource websites identified by the government will be zero-rated for all customers where technically feasible
6. So that customers can remain connected during the crisis, service providers will engage with any customer that contacts them who is in financial difficulty as a result of COVID-19 and has difficulty paying their bills to agree the best way of keeping them connected to voice and data
7. Service Providers will work with ComReg in the event of complaints raised to ComReg by consumers, who consider they are not being treated in accordance with these commitments
These commitments will be implemented by operators as soon as possible. Each service provider will provide details and implementation updates on their own website. The commitments will remain available to consumers until 30 June 2020 and will be reviewed in advance of that date if needed.
Customers experiencing issues should contact their service provider in the first instance, before contacting ComReg's Consumer Care Team at consumerline@comreg.ie or 01 8049668 (from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturday, excluding public holidays.
ENDS
Data consumed in accessing a zero rated website is completely free and so does not count for billing purposes or in the calculation of data usage with reference to a consumer's data allowance.