To facilitate early restoration of acceptable level of services

Bandar Seri Begawan - The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI), yesterday issued a statement declaring that the protection of public and consumer interest will be a priority following the recent publication of a Notice of Petition of Winding-Up against local telecommunication's provider B-Mobile.

Over the recent weeks, B-Mobile subscribers have been affected by what AITI has described as being "outages and degradations" of the telecommunications services that have rendered some subscribers without connectivity in certain parts of the Sultanate and leaving others with lower than expected service levels.

It was stated that AITI has taken note of the petition made by Telekom Brunei Berhad (TelBru) and "will do its utmost to protect the public interest, particularly affected subscribers with the intention to facilitate the early restoration of an acceptable level of services" as in accordance with AITI's Code of Practice on Quality of Service.

Published on February 5, the Notice of Petition of Winding-Up against B-Mobile has been directed to be heard before the Supreme Court at 9am on February 28, 2013 following the petition that was made on January 26, 2013.

A few days prior to the publishing of the petition, the AITI publicly acknowledged the issues surrounding B-Mobile's connectivity, reassuring the public that the governing body responsible for the licensing and regulating of telecommunications services was taking steps to ensure that B-Mobile "resolves the situation and restore provision of telecommunications services" in favour of the subscribers and the public.

It was explained by AITI that among the functions and duties of the regulator "is to ensure that telecommunications services are reasonably accessible to all in Brunei Darussalam, and are supplied efficiently, economically Is well as practicable and at performance standards that can reasonably meet the social, industrial and commercial needs of the country", whilst at the same time "promote and maintain fair and efficient market conduct and effective competition in the telecommunications market" in the country.

B-Mobile, in response to a customer's complaint, published a letter in the Borneo Bulletin's Opinion page on January 30, 2012, saying that it "deeply regrets any inconvenience experienced" by the customer and that the company had been experiencing service disruption that had "primarily affected some parts of the network and services". The company went on to say that it "recognises and is addressing customer complaints with utmost priority".

--Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin