The government has decided to make it mandatory for telecom service providers to give at least 30 days advance notice to subscribers before shutting down their services, a top government official said.

The development has come against the background of abrupt closure of services by some telecom operators recently which left their subscribers in lurch.

The new rule is part of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s recommendations on ‘Closure of Access Services’ that were approved by the Telecom Commission at its meeting held on Wednesday.

“This was from point of view of ease of doing business and also customers are not put to great difficulty. It was decided that the customers are given 30 days notice before a service shut down and the licensor and Trai should be notified 60 calendar days in advance. Earlier no time limit was there,” Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters here.

Following approval of Trai’s recommendation, the subscriber would also not need to port his mobile number on same network if a particular technology is closed down but will need to port out if entire services of telecom operator are shut down.

The commission for the convenience of telecom operator approved that in case the company wants to close down services partially, it will not be required to surrender entire licence.

“Licensee can be permitted to discontinue the services without the need to surrender the licence. The UAS licence will be amended to that effect,” Sundararajan said.

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