Lodge a Complaint

The Commission is mandated by the Telecommunications Act (2009) to regulate the telecommunications sector and as such, maintains its policy of assisting complainants to address complaints directly to their service provider, as the first step towards resolving individual problems. However, the Commission can be requested or may, of its own volition, carry out investigations into matters related to market, service providers, services, anti-competition or other such issues.

Type of Complaint

Service providers are required to file the standard retail prices of all their telecommunications services with the Commission within 7 days of setting (or changing) prices for them.

The Commission may require that the service provider take extra measures or provide additional information as part of their filed prices. As a standard, service providers are required to provide the prices and the corresponding services/products and conditions that apply for those services and prices. Service providers are also required to publish this information on their websites and by circulation at their points of sale.

The Commission may regulate the prices of services provided by selected service providers in accordance with the Act to regulate market impact and to ensure that a reasonable level of competition exists in the market. Regulation may come in the form of price caps, by setting a glide path or by utilising other methods as the Commission sees fit, taking into account services providers' (for concerns such as return on investment) and to maintain healthy competition. The Commission may carry out this role of its own volition or upon application from other service providers.

The Commission may require that service providers repay to its users amounts received on the basis of prices applied that do not comply with the pdf Telecommunications Act (2009) (627 KB) .

The Price Control Act does not apply for the provision of telecommunications services and access.

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Anti-Competition

As part of the role of regulator within the telecommunications sector in the Solomon Islands, the Commission can be requested or may, of its own volition, carry out investigations into matters related to market, service providers, services, anti-competition or other such issues.

The pdf Telecommunications Act (2009) (627 KB)  requires that the Commission reports such investigations in the Annual Report. A summary of investigations carried out by the Commission can be found in this section.

Contact the Commission for more information. 

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Consumer Complaints

Anti-Competition

Price Filings

The Commission maintains its policy of assisting complainants to address full formed complaints to their service provider, as the first step towards resolving individual problems.

This feedback from the market directly, is an important part of the competitive process since in many cases customers have a choice of supplier. The Commission receives a high level of cooperation from all service providers in addressing and resolving individual complaints. The occasions of generalised outages or poor data speeds are often the result of technical problems or bandwidth capacity constraints outside the local operators’ control.

The Commission continues to monitor and collect data on the quality of handsets sold in the local market by retailers who are not telecommunications service providers, because of concerns that some devices may be imitations of genuine products. While less expensive than genuine products that are available through Our Telekom and Bmobile, some of these cheaper devices may not be fully functional for very long.

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Service Providers

Lodge a Complaint

The Commission is required under Part 8 of the pdf Telecommunications Act (2009) (627 KB)  to monitor competitive practices in the Solomon Islands. Service providers are not permitted to enter into contracts which negatively affect or lessen competition in a telecommunications market.

Anti-competition practices include but are not limited to the following practices:

  • Fixing the retail price or other conditions of trading;
  • Apportions, shares or allocates a market (or markets) among themselves or other service providers;
  • Prevents or restricts the supply or acquisition of a service to or from a person or group of persons;
  • Requires of unfairly induces a supplier to refrain from selling to another service provider;
  • Imposes unfair restrictions on who other persons may deal with in a market;
  • Competes unfairly in a market by cross-subsidising a service from a service that is not available in another, competitive, market;
  • Competes unfairly in a retail market by reducing the profit margin available to a competing service provider in a manner that adversely affects the market conditions;
  • Supplies a service at prices below cost for a substantial period time such that competitors are at risk of being driven out of the market;
  • Bundles offered services in a manner that unfairly offers discounts for one or more of those services;
  • Purposefully pre-emptively acquiring scarce resources (including rights of way) that are required by another service provider for their operations with the intention to unfairly deny the use of the resource to the other service provider;
  • Adopting technical specification for networks or facilities with the purpose of preventing interoperability with another service providers’ network or facility.

The Commission may take actions in order to substantially reduce competition in a market.

Under certain conditions the Commission has the authority to exempt a practice or contract from Anti-Competition rules. Agreements between service providers that may exhibit anti-competitive characteristics are also allowed under certain conditions.

Please contact the Director of Markets and Competition for more information.

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Price Filings

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