The Hindu Business Line : Tariff hikes: TRAI mulls raising ‘minimum protection period’

New Delhi, July 23 In a bid to protect telecom consumers and ensure transparency, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday proposed to increase the ‘minimum protection period’ available to access services consumers from tariff hikes to one year from the date of enrolment into a tariff plan. The current regime entails a six month protection against such hikes.

“However, lifetime subscribers and subscribers in longer periods of validity will continue to be protected for the lifetime and with respect to the longer periods of validity subscribed to by the consumers,” a TRAI statement said summarising the modifications proposed to be made as Amendments to Telecommunication Tariff Order.

TRAI has now asked the stakeholders to offer their views on these proposals to amend the Telecom Tariff Order.

“In cases of straight tariff reductions, where the declared intention of the operator is to extend the benefit to all subscribers without attached liabilities, there shall not be any pre-condition of explicit positive action on the part of subscribers,” TRAI said. This proposal assumes significance in the light of recent announcements by Vodafone and Idea of making available reduced domestic long distance charges to those subscribers who requested for it through an SMS.

The regulator further pointed out that in cases where 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 a lower entry fee, the service provider would not levy any upfront payment or recurring charges for such migration.

“No fixed fee other than applicable taxes shall be levied on recharges exclusively meant for provision of talk time value. However, the service provider can charge nominal fee not exceeding Rs 2 per top up towards the administrative costs,” TRAI said.

It further said that if the terms and conditions of a lifetime plan or plan with unlimited validity includes any condition of minimum amount of recharge at specified intervals, the interval would be minimum six months. “Before expiry of the specified duration for the recharge, in these plans, if any, consumers are to be reminded by the service provider in advance to avoid disconnection by default,” TRAI said.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Weekend rains likely over peninsula

Rupee surges by 65 paise

Near-term trend positive in rupee

Insurance players now see scope for more FDI

Strides-Aspen in supply pact with GlaxoSmithKline

Steel Authority of India (Rs 146): Buy

Day Trading Guide

Cotton export contracts need to be registered

Cashew apple seen a viable source to produce ethanol

‘Short-term profitability of general insurance firms could be hit’

Disinvestment process may gain speed

Markets on a song

Market experts doubt sustainability of current rally

Tariff hikes: TRAI mulls raising ‘minimum protection period’

Slowdown in Indian aviation may end in a year: Boeing