On 29.04.2015, TRAI released draft “Telecom Consumers Protection (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2015” for inviting comments of Stakeholders and public by 12.05.2015. The objective is to protect the interest of mobile consumers by amending the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012. TRAI proposes to insert Regulation 10 A & B after Regulation 10 of the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012 which provides as follows:
- mandate the service providers to provide information, through SMS or USSD, to mobile users, who have subscribed to data connection other than through data packs, about quantum of data used and the tariff thereof after every 5000 kilobytes of data usage.
- mandate the service providers to provide the mobile subscriber, who has taken data connection through data packs or through tariff plan with discounted tariff upto certain limit, an alert through SMS or USSD, whenever the limit of data usage reaches 50%, 90% and 100% of data limit. Also when the usage reaches 90% of the limit, information about the applicable tariff beyond the data limit shall also to be communicated.
- data services should be activated or deactivated only with the explicit consent of the subscriber through toll free short code 1925, following the prescribed procedures for obtaining explicit consent of the consumer and for deactivation data.
-Ministry of Communications and Information Technology