92 No. 28743 Act No. 36, 2005 GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 18 APRIL 2006 ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS ACT, 2005 (d) the protection for consumers including disclosure of consumer rights relating to— (i) numbers and number portability; and (ii) the process and procedures to be followed for resolving subscriber complaints and affording subscribers remedies in the form of discounts 5 and credits when the electronic communications network service licensee or electronic communications services licensee fails to meet its obligations under this section; and (e) a framework, including a schedule for transforming the numbering plan to a non-geographic numbering system taking into account similar non-geo- 10 graphic numbering plans adopted in other jurisdictions and implementation of electronic numbering, allowing the inter-operation between telephone numbers and the Internet domain name system. CHAPTER 12 CONSUMER ISSUES 15 Code of conduct, end-user and subscriber service charter 69. (1) The Authority must, as soon as reasonably possible after the coming into force of this Act, prescribe regulations setting out a code of conduct for licensees subject to this Act and persons exempted from holding a licence in terms of section 6 to the extent such persons provide a service to the public. (2) The Authority may develop different codes of conduct applicable to different types of services. All electronic communications network services licence and electronic communications service licensees must comply with the Code of Conduct for such services as prescribed. (3) The Authority must, as soon as reasonably possible after the coming into force of this Act, prescribe regulations setting out the minimum standards for and end-user and subscriber service charters. (4) The Authority may develop different minimum standards for and end-user and subscriber service charters for different types of services. (5) The matters which an end-user and subscriber service charter may address include, but are not limited to— (a) the provision of information to end-users and subscribers regarding services, rates, and performance procedures; (b) provisioning and fault repair services; (c) the protection of private end-user and subscriber information; (d) end-user and subscriber charging, billing, collection and credit practices; (e) complaint procedures and the remedies that are available to address the matters at issue; and (f) any other matter of concern to end-users and subscribers. (6) Where an end-user or subscriber is not satisfied after utilising the complaint procedures set out in the regulations, his or her complaint may be submitted to the Authority in accordance with the provisions of section 17C of the ICASA Act. 20 25 30 35 40 People with disabilities 70. The Authority must prescribe regulations setting out a code on people with 45 disabilities that will be applicable to all categories of licences. Consumer Advisory Panel 71. (1) The Authority must establish a consumer advisory panel that will advise the Authority on matters relating to consumer issues in the Republic. (2) The constitution of the consumer advisory panel must be as prescribed.