Plain English Guide to Technical Terms
Although we have tried to explain the Telecommunication Dispute Resolution (TDR) service as simply as possible, there are still some technical words and terms that are used on this website.
This is a guide to some of those words and terms.
| Adjudication | The term used when a dispute goes to Level 4 and is reviewed by an adjudicator. An adjudicator will make a final decision about the dispute, which is binding on the telecommunications company.
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| Adjudicator | Adjudicators are professional, independent people who are skilled in advanced legal and statutory interpretation, analysis and reasoning. Adjudicators deliver fully reasoned written decisions, which are binding on Scheme Members.
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| Conciliator | The formal name for the person who acts as a mediator in a dispute, to help with the discussions between a customer and the telecommunications company.
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| Deadlock | When a complaint has been raised with a telecommunications company and has come to the end of the company's internal complaints procedure without being resolved, or when it's been six weeks or more since the customer contacted the company and the customer still doesn’t have a resolution they are happy with, whichever comes first. A customer can only bring their complaint to TDR once a situation has reached deadlock.
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Dispute Summary |
The written report of a dispute that details all of the negotiations between a customer and a telecommunications company.
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| Facilitator | The formal name for the people that customers deal with when they make a complaint to TDR.
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| Jurisdiction | The areas of dispute that TDR can look at. There are some areas of telecommunication service TDR can’t investigate, such as pricing, network coverage and 111 calls.
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| Scheme | The framework that operates the TDR service. The Scheme controls the setup and functions of the TDR service. The TDR service is how the Scheme is delivered to consumers.
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| Scheme Agent | The company appointed by the Telecommunication Carriers' Forum to implement the TDR Scheme. Dispute Resolution Services is currently the Scheme Agent.
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| Telecommunication Service Provider | Any company that supplies customers with telecommunication services. This can include land line telephones, internet, mobile phones (both pre-pay and customers who have mobile phone accounts), data, the delivery of television content, etc.
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