The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Monday gazetted proposed regulatory amendments aimed at mitigating mobile operators’ expiry of data and out-of-billing practices.
The End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Amendment Regulations 2017 aim to dictate that the licensees adhere to new proposed set validity periods for data packages based on the size of the bundles.
For 20 GB-plus packages, the validity must be a minimum of 24 months, while packages in the 10 GB to 20 GB range must remain valid for a year.
Smaller bundles will have a shorter timeframe, with 1 MB to 50 MB to be valid for ten days; 50 MB to 500 MB 30 days; 500 MB to 1 GB 60 days; 1 GB to 5 GB 90 days; and 5 GB to 10 GB 180 days.
In addition, operators will be required to notify clients of pending data expiry seven days prior, as well as providing a roll-over option for unused data.
Further, Icasa also aims to mitigate consumer-unfriendly out-of-bundle billing practices, with licensees no longer allowed to automatically default to out-of-bundle data charges when an end-user’s bundle is depleted.
Icasa’s proposals include the establishment of a mechanism to opt-in or opt-out of bundle charges and use upon data bundle depletion; sending end-users regular data depletion notifications and warning notifications and the provision of a USSD platform-based, or similar, option to buy additional data bundles upon depletion.
“Where an end-user does not opt-in or opt-out of out-of-bundle data use when his/her data bundle has been depleted, a licensee must automatically disconnect the end-user from out-of-bundle data use until such time that the end-user gives express consent or authorisation,” Icasa suggested.
Interested parties have 30 working days from Monday to submit written responses to the proposals.