The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has announced that it will be holding public hearings regarding its proposed End-User Subscriber Service Charter (EUSSC) amendments.
This follows Icasa publishing draft amendments for public comment earlier this year.
The hearings will run over two days and feature comments on the amendments by MTN, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), Telkom, Cell C, Vodacom, Rain, Amandla.mobi, and other major industry players.
Icasa said the amendments aimed to strengthen consumer protection provisions within the charter, while balancing the need for a dynamic and effective market for bundles of voice, SMS, data, and over-the-top (OTT) services.
“The proposed amendments are necessitated by numerous ongoing concerns raised by various stakeholders, including consumer groups,” Icasa said.
The regulator said concerns include expiry rules for service bundles, high out-of-bundle rates and rules, and lack of clarity with regards to rollover and transfer provisions for voice, SMS, data and other types of bundles.
Icasa committee chair Charley Lewis said the authority believed these revised regulations now struck the “appropriate regulatory balance” after the regulator published a previous set of proposed amendments in 2022.
“The vibrant market for low-denomination, short-term bundles will be allowed to flourish,” Lewis said.
“On the other hand, consumers of longer-duration, larger-denomination bundles will not be unduly disadvantaged given the firm, clear guidelines we are proposing for the rollover or transfer of portions of what they have purchased in good faith.”
The main intentions of the revised amendments are aimed at the following;
- Treating all service bundles that customers may purchase in the same way, be they voice, SMS or data
- Ensuring that social media and streaming bundles are also treated similarly
- Providing staggered provisions for the automatic, partial rollover of unused portions of service bundles of 7 days or longer
- Giving certainty as to the full duration of very short e.g.ndles (eg 1 hour = 60 full minutes, 1 day = 24 full hours)
- Protecting the right of consumers to transfer bundles or bundle portions between SIM cards on the same network
The first major proposal is that mobile networks deplete bundles in order of earliest expiry.
This proposal came about after stakeholders’ comments on the previous amendments pointed out that the first-in, first-out data consumption principle was not always beneficial for customers.
The second significant change is that mobile networks must roll over a portion of unused bundles.
Icasa divided bundles into three main categories based on the length of their validity:
- Short-term bundle — Valid for less than 7 days from activation
- Medium-term bundle — Valid for 7–30 days from activation
- Long-term bundle — Valid for over 30 days
The revised amendments don’t make provision for the rollover of any unused data from short-term bundles, which offer the most affordable rates.
However, the rules propose that 50% of unused mobile data on medium-term bundles must roll over to the following equivalent validity period.
This can happen a maximum of two times after the initial expiry date.
Therefore, a 10GB monthly data bundle with 5GB left by its expiration date should have at least 2.5GB carried over to the next month.
If 1GB of that bundle is left after the second month, 500MB will be carried over to the next month.
For long-term bundles, only 25% of unused data must be rolled over to the equivalent validity period, at least twice.
Icasa said the rollover of bundles must occur without requiring any action and without incurring any cost to the end-user.
The amendments also propose that mobile networks must allow consumers to transfer bundles or portions thereof to any other consumer on the same network.
The transferred resource must retain the same conditions as the original bundle, including those relating to expiry dates, bundle rollover and bundle transfer.
In addition, the transfer of bundles must not be limited to specific service types, except for uncapped, free or promotional bundles, and applies to any SIM card or device on the same network, including SIM cards or devices owned by the same consumer.
Networks should also not be allowed to limit the number of times that a user can transfer their data, voice minutes, or SMSs.
Furthermore, the validity period of a bundle must be extended when an end-user is unable to utilise the bundle due to a fault on the part of the network.
While Icasa does not define a “fault”, this would presumably mean a situation in which the network is offline or inaccessible.
It is unclear whether this would include times when mobile network towers go down due to load-shedding or if this would not be regarded as a fault of the operator.
Other amendments include that networks must send users notifications via SMS, push notification, or any other applicable means when their consumption reaches 50%, 80%, and 100% depletion of each bundle.
Furthermore, mobile networks are not allowed to let users consume data, minutes, or SMSes at out-of-bundle rates unless they opt in.