What is the responsibility of the ICT Consumer

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What is the responsibility of the ICT Consumer?

• By Joan Kyokutamba,
• Uganda Consumer Protection Association

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Background - Why Involve the Consumer?

• Until liberalization was introduced to the
  sector, the poor national telecommunication
  service were a monopoly of the government, just
  like electricity, public transport, water and
  other utilities.
• Liberalization opened up the sector to increased
  investment and competition among providers, but
  opened up consumer vulnerability and market
  abuses in an environment with limited choices.
  It exposed consumers to powerful infrastructure
  owners.

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Uniqueness of the ICT Consumer

• ICT consumption differs from that of other
  utilities like water and electricity whose usage
  is natural and has not changed over time.
• In ICT, technology has revolved so fast and
  changed many things that 10 years ago, almost 95
  of the current mobile phone and Internet users
  had never thought of using ICT.
• However, like other utilities, access to ICT
  means the badly needed inclusion of most
  consumers. (As opposed to discrimination).

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Consumer responsibly

• ICT services come with infrastructure, it should
  be reliable, to enables users reap social and
  financial returns.
• The consumer needs to develop and maintain trust
  through the various forms (telephone, fax, email
  etc). Eg. Have a known number/adress.
• ICT users need to develop ettiquete to use in
  social and professional networks without
  violating the shared values and norms of those
  groups.

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New issues, New roles

• Now that infrastructure is in place, it is partly
  the social duty of the consumer to ensure that it
  remains in place and is not vandalized.
• Since infrastructure is no longer an issue to
  many, other issues keep coming up because
  personal needs keep changing. Eg. Promotions are
  giving us new areas of stress.

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Consumer responsibility

• Each consumer has the responsibility to learn
  about what s/he needs and/or vs what is available
  on the market
• S/he needs to make an informed purchase of tools
  for accessing the srvice.
• From the service provider, the consumer should
  ask for help and this help should be willingly
  provided.

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Consumer responsibility

• Communication works better when there is mutual
  trust between the parties, therefore, undermining
  of each other on basis of infrastructure used
  for communication should be dessisted.
• To fulfill this all systems should be developed
  to have equal capacity to transmit communication.

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Consumer Responsibility

• Consumers should demand to be included when
  regulating basic access and service prices and to
  be given the necessary information about the
  service that matches the community levels of
  literacy.
• Consumers should also ensure that people dont
  create illegal access to the infrastructure
  because it makes services expensive.

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Consumer responsibility

• Consumers need to have the requisite skill to
  enable them access ICT services.
• The consumer should ensure that user fees are
  fair, and responsibly pay for the service. (Not
  to create illegal access to the infrastructure).

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Consumer responsibilities

• Consumers should educate themselves regarding
  the capability of the system and related
  equipment and its ability to perform what s/he
  wants to the best quality.
• Consumers need to be sufficiently aware and
  consider safeguards against the online threats
  and take practical measures to address them.
  These could be viruses, mail harkers, the need to
  protect user passwords etc.

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The role of the consumer

• Do you regard these issues to be relevant to your
  consumer obligations?
• Thank you for listening.