Telecom regulator TRAI today came out with guidelines under the “Telecom Consumers Protection (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2015? which requires strict levels of disclosure of billing for mobile data and other services in a bid to protect the subscribers.
Under the new guidelines, the telecom service providers would not only have to provide their subscribers with information regarding the mobile data used, but also information regarding various special data packs and an alert to international roaming customer cautioning him to deactivate data service if he does not intend to use data services.
The telecom operators have been given time till September 1 to implement these guidelines.
While pre-paid users do get such notifications even now, these rules will extend the benefit to post-paid subscribers also. TRAI had been receiving several complaints from consumers regarding non-availability of information relating to the amount of data used during a data session.
The service providers offer concessional tariff for data, up to a certain limit, through special tariff vouchers or combo vouchers (data packs), add-on packs and also through certain tariff plans.
The tariff for any usage beyond the specified limit is substantially higher. Therefore, if the customer unknowingly exceeds the limit for concessional tariff, it results in substantial charges being levied, leading to sudden bill shock or unexpected deduction of balance amount.
Subscribers had also voiced concern about activation of internet service on mobile phones without their consent and deduction of charges for data usage. For addressing these concerns, TRAI proposed certain measures for public consultation through the draft Telecom Consumers Protection (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2015, issued on April 29 last. Keeping in view the comments received during this consultation process and discussions with the service providers and their industry associations, TRAI has issued the Telecom Consumers Protection (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2015.
Under the new rules, operators will have to provide information to mobile data users regarding data used, after every 10MB of data usage to all mobile data users except users of special data packs (STV/Combo/add-on-pack). The consumers would have to be provided with an option to opt out if they do not desire to receive such information.
Information will have to be provided to users of various special data packs (STV/Combo/add-on-pack), whenever the limit of data usage reaches 50%, 90% and 100% of data available in the account of the subscriber or when the data balance available in the account of the subscriber reaches 500 MB, 100 MB and 10MB.
Further, the consumer shall be informed about the details of tariff applicable after exhausting the data limit, when the data limit reaches 90% or the data balance available in the account reaches 10MB.
Data services should be activated only with the explicit consent of the subscriber through a toll free short code 1925. The data services could also be deactivated through the same toll free code
