Telecom subscribers have reasons to cheer, particularly in the pre-paid segment, which comprises about 80% of the mobile market. In a comprehensive exercise to make the entire tariff structure more transparent, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday issued a set of dos and don’ts for the operators, which redresses most consumer grievances.
The new directions, effective September 15, centre around popular issues like lifetime validity, migration from pre-paid to post-paid, promotional offers, tariff reductions, and top-up recharges.
The new directives say pre-paid subscribers having validity would get full talk time on top-up recharges. They need not pay more than Rs 2 as a fixed fee other than applicable taxes as the regulator has abolished the processing charges on such cards.
Trai said it was brought to its notice that operators were deducting a processing fee even in top-up cases within the validity period.
Subscribers will now also be able to migrate from one tariff pan to another and from pre-paid to post-paid without any barriers, such as changing the SIM card. Trai has also asked the operators to provide straight tariff reductions, which means general tariff cuts, without any conditionality. This follows an earlier direction to Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, as first reported by FE, to withdraw a cut in STD tariff that applied only to consumers who ask for it through an SMS. Trai directed all service providers to extend tariff cuts to all customers without any pre-conditions such as sending SMS to a redefined number.
In terms of the ‘life-time validity schemes’, which forms the bulk of pre-paid schemes, the regulator said that if a subscriber of an existing lifetime validity plan or unlimited validity plan opts for migration to a new lifetime validity or unlimited validity plan, with lower entry fee, the consumer should be able to do so seamlessly. The service provider shall not levy any upfront payment or recurring charges or fee for allowing such migration. Thus customers in existing lifetime plans can migrate to new lifetime plans without having to make additional payment or recharges.
Trai has also specified that lifetime customers need not recharge more than once in six months. The regulator has put a ceiling on the number of ‘black-out’ days an operator can have on concessional tariffs as five in a calendar year. Black-out days are the days on which free or concessional tariffs are not made available.
In a move, which would immensely benefit subscribers in the rural areas, Trai has mandated all service providers to ensure that key information regarding tariffs must be displayed in vernacular languages in addition to English.
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