The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has stated that it has refunded EGP 970,000 to telecommunication service users during Q4 of 2020 after the authority intervened to settle complaints.

The NTRA announced on Saturday that they helped increase complaint resolution rates to 96 percent, with an average time of 2.2 days to resolve, adding that the indicators for resolving user complaints improved during that quarter.

The amount was refunded after the NTRA investigations into the users’ claims; the largest complaints listed were related to mobile calls (55 percent), incorrect claims (29 percent), mobile internet (7 percent), and against charges for unwanted extra services (6 percent).

Telecom companies affected by the refunds were Vodafone (49 percent), Orange (42 percent), Etisalat (6 percent), and WE (3 percent).

The rate of mobile phone complaints received against WE was 22 complaints for every 100,000 subscribers, Orange was 19 complaints for every 100,000 subscribers, Vodafone was 16 complaints for every 100,000 subscribers, and 16 complaints for every 100,000 subscribers.

According to their recent report, the NTRA received over 54,500 user complaints, including 15,700+ mobile phone complaints, 25,500+ fixed internet complaints, 11,900+ fixed phone complaints, and 1,200+ mobile devices complaints.

NTRA states that complaints were made through the authority’s call center (78 percent), WhatsApp (6 percent), and through social media platforms (2 percent). Compared to 86 percent in Q3 last year, NTRA notes that successful number transfer process between telecom operators increased to 95 percent during Q4 2020. They note that around 110,000 numbers were successfully transferred from one operator to another in Q4 of 2020, compared to 54,000 numbers in Q3 of the same year.

Mobile users’ biggest complaints were grievance from the technical inspection result (41 percent), delay in the maintenance period of devices (35 percent), and refusal to replace (14 percent).