Telekom was fined by ANCOM, the National Authority for Communications Administration and Regulation, with a huge amount for the unavailability of its mobile phone network in March of this year. In reality, we are talking about the most serious security incident that affected a mobile phone network in Romania, those from Telekom having the network unavailable for several hours on March 5, although it has the obligation not to have a period of non-operation longer than 35 minutes in 6 months.
Telekom received two fines totaling 1.1 million LEI following this serious security incident, ANCOM applying the fine after analyzing the internal documents sent by the telecom operator. ANCOM considered that the problems of those from Telekom prevented the use of mobile phone and internet services for a longer period of time than the contractual obligation of the operator, he having no logs for the last 6 months of operation.
Telekom: HUGE FINE for Network Unavailability
Telekom was fined 600.000 LEI for the fact that its network was unavailable for more than 35 minutes in the last 6 months, violating the contractual obligation to operate. Moreover, Telekom had the obligation to keep logs for 6 months to demonstrate that its network was not unavailable for more than 35 minutes, but it did not have them, so ANCOM decided to apply a fine of 500.000 LEI for this violation.
"The analysis of the documents sent by Telekom Mobile regarding the security incident that affected its network in March of this year showed that there were serious violations of the conditions of availability of the services provided to users. It was the worst incident recorded on the electronic communications market in Romania, therefore we imposed two fines on this supplier in the total amount of 1.100.000 lei."
Telekom then apologized to its customers for the problems its network had, but those from ANCOM make it clear that the problem was a much more serious one, which affected the integrity of the mobile phone network. Additional details regarding this incident do not exist at the moment, so it remains to be seen if Telekom will comment in any way on this situation, the fine being in any case an insignificant one for a company with revenues of over 1 billion euros annually.
"ANCOM sanctioned Telekom Romania Mobile Communications with two fines in the amount of 1.100.000 lei for non-compliance with the obligation stipulated in the License to use the radio frequencies held to ensure that the unavailability of the network is less than 35 minutes for a period of 6 months and failure to keep network logs recorded at the granularity level in the License, respectively.
According to the obligations assumed by the license for the use of radio frequencies, the provider must ensure that the unavailability of the network does not exceed 35 minutes over a period of 6 months. Because the unavailability of the network had serious consequences, affecting users' ability to make calls, access e-mail services, access remote surveillance services or remotely control safety/protection devices, Telekom Mobile received a fine of 600.000 lei.
Another obligation set out in the License requires the provider to keep recorded network logs for a period of 6 months. These tools are used to be able to demonstrate to the Authority the availability of the network according to the imposed requirements. The provider could not fulfill ANCOM's request to transmit the network logs recorded for the last 6 months at the level of granularity in the License, thus complicating the analysis carried out to determine the real degree of unavailability of the Telekom Mobile network on 05.03.2018/500.000/XNUMX. For this violation, the Authority imposed a fine of XNUMX lei."
