Pub­li­ca­tions

Technical requirements

The technical requirements for metering and billing systems relate to the collection, processing and transmission of data. They provide the assessing bodies and the Bundesnetzagentur with a basis for assessing the suitability of the measures demonstrated in accordance with section 45g of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

The minimum technical requirements relating to services charged at time-based and/or distance-based prices were published in Part 3 of Administrative Order No 168/1999 in Official Gazette No 23/1999 of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts of 22 December 1999 "Technical requirements for metering and billing systems to ensure correct metering and billing in accordance with section 5 of the Telecommunications Customer Protection Ordinance (TKV)":

Technical requirements for billing processes for services charged at time-based and distance-based prices

Part 2 of Administrative Order No 168/1999 contains a discussion of the arguments presented during the relevant consultation process. The complete Administrative Order is available from our publications section.

Experience showed that early IP equipment had difficulties in complying with the strict time requirements of Administrative Order No 168/1999 in best-effort mode. These requirements were therefore temporarily lifted for certain online services (Administrative Order No 17/2001 in Official Gazette No 4/2001 of 28 February 2001):

Suspension of the requirements relating to the recording of call times for certain online services

The requirements for metering and billing systems and procedures for services charged at volume-based prices were published in Administrative Order No 43/2010 in Bundesnetzagentur Official Gazette No 24/2010 of 22 December 2010, after consultation with the relevant companies, expert groups and consumer associations:

Technical requirements for metering and billing processes for services charged at volume-based prices

Compliance procedure

Section 45g of the Telecommunications Act requires providers of publicly available telecommunications services to ensure compliance with the requirements and the conditions for correct metering and billing by means of a quality system (to be reviewed in an annual audit) or to have such compliance verified annually by officially appointed, sworn experts or comparable bodies. The original test certificate issued by the accredited quality system certification body or test results from the officially appointed, sworn expert must then be submitted to the Bundesnetzagentur.

Service providers must submit proof of compliance with the metering and billing requirements on their own initiative.

In specific cases, such proof of compliance as required under section 45g of the Act can be drawn up by the telecommunications service providers themselves. If a telecommunications service provider outsources all the subprocesses in the regulated billing process to one or more telecommunications service providers also subject to the requirements of section 45g of the Act (ie is not responsible for any subprocess), the Bundesnetzagentur will accept as full proof an overview of the companies involved in the metering and billing process and a summary of the test results from those companies.

• Providers of telecommunications services charged at time-based and/or distance-based prices use the overview of companies involved in the billing process.
• Providers of telecommunications services charged at volume-based prices use the overview of companies involved in billing.

The summary of test results must be obtained from the companies responsible for the subprocesses.

Requirements for experts and their reports and for quality system certification bodies and their certificates and audit reports were published in Administrative Order No 18/2000 in Official Gazette No 4/2000 of 23 February 2000. This Administrative Order also refers to the measures applicable where a provider fails to provide any proof, provides incomplete proof or fails to provide proof within the proper time. Supplementary information on deadlines is contained in Administrative Order No 63/2000 in Official Gazette No 12/2000 of 30 June 2000.

Requirements for comparable bodies, test reports and procedures in the case of outsourced subprocesses were published in Administrative Order No 6/2001 in Official Gazette No 01/2001 of 17 January 2001.

Explanatory information concerning proof of compliance, in particular the legality of proof, was published in Communication No 367/2001 in Official Gazette No 12/2001 of 27 June 2001.

The assessing bodies accompany their detailed report of their examinations, observations and results with a "time" summary and an overview of the companies involved in the billing process and/or a "volume" summary and an overview of the companies involved in billing, depending on the subject of their assessment.