The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has gazetted the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Regulations to develop minimum standards for the provision of data, SMSes and voice services and dictate the actions required around data expiry and out-of-bundle services.
The final regulations followed a review and subsequent public hearings that unpacked industry submissions and general concerns about the perceived high cost of data and high out-of- bundle data rates.
“The authority . . . has reached the final stage in respect of this review process.
"In terms of our decision, the authority holds the view that the new regulations will . . . benefit consumers,” says Icasa chairperson Rubben Mohlaloga.
The regulations now dictate that mobile operators and telecommunications groups must send data-use depletion notifications by means of SMSes, push notifications or “any applicable means” to consumers when their data use reaches 50%, 80% and 100% depletion levels.
“This will enable consumers to monitor their use and control spend on communication services,” Icasa explains.
The licensee must also provide post-paid end-users with the option to buy additional voice services or SMSes at any time.
Further, operators are no longer allowed to charge consumers out-of-bundle rates when their data has run out without the consumers’ specific prior consent and provide an option to buy additional data bundles through the USSD platform or an alternative facility.
This means that consumers will no longer default to out-of-bundle data charges when their data bundle is depleted, unless they opt in.
Operators will be required to provide an option by means of SMS, push notification, USSD or any other applicable means to ‘opt out’ of or ‘opt in’ to the out-of- bundle use charge to continue uninterrupted browsing.
“Where an end-user does not ‘opt in’ to out-of-bundle data charge as per regulation, a licensee must not permit any out-of-bundle data use by an end-user until such time that an end-user purchases new data bundles or consents to be charged out-of-bundle data rates,” the gazette outlines.
In terms of the rollover of data, licensees are required to provide an option for consumers to roll over unused data, as well as the option of transferring data to other users on the same network.
“A licensee must provide end-users with an option to roll over unused data before the expiry date. In the event of unused data being rolled over, a licensee shall in the first instance apply data use against the rolled-over data until that data is fully depleted, and thereafter against the newly allocated data,” Icasa notes.