South African draft mobile data regs could have unintended effects

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa's (ICASA’s) recent draft regulations on mobile data expiry and changes to out-of-bundle billing practices for telecoms operators could unintentionally raise data prices, reports ITWeb.

“This is according to Africa Analysis senior analyst Ofentse Mopedi, who says while the proposed changes to the end user and subscriber service charter regulations appear to be a positive step for the highly competitive data market, they may unintentionally affect consumers in a negative way.” “We may see operators adjusting their bundles, with the in-bundle rate/MB for various bundles going up; this may be done in a bid to maintain data revenue growth,” Mopedi says.

ICASA published draft regulations on 7 August that include new timeframes for the expiry of data bundles and out-of-bundle billing rules which include that consumers will need to decide to opt-in to out-of-bundle pricing on data, voice and SMS services if their bundles have been depleted. However, consumers will benefit from a reduction of confusing data bundles (i.e., hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and so forth) and will save money as they will no longer forfeit data as a result of an expiry date, Mopedi adds. http://bit.ly/2xx8FDo 

• Tuesday, 19 September 2017