The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday mandated telecom operators to offer separate recharge plans only for voice and SMS services.
This has been done to give certain consumers an option to pay for the services they require. Many consumers require only voice and SMS services. However, since recharge plans are bundled with data by telcos, the same prompts users to also pay for additional service such as data which they don’t require.
Therefore, in a bid to provide benefits to certain segments of consumers, especially the elderly persons, people living in rural areas, and feature phone users, Trai has notified Telecom Consumers Protection (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2024.
“The authority is of the view that a separate STV (special tariff voucher) for voice and SMS in addition to existing data only STV and bundled offers shall be mandated,” Trai said.
“It is also observed that mandating voice and SMS only STV will provide an option to subscribers who do not require data and this, in anyway, will not reverse the government initiative of data inclusion as service providers are at liberty to offer bundled offers and data only vouchers,” Trai added.
In July, Trai released a consultation paper to review the Telecom Consumer Protection Regulations, 2012. Through the paper, it addressed the issues of choice of tariff availability, validity of vouchers, colour coding of vouchers, and denomination of vouchers.
In the notification, Trai asked telcos to increase the cap on validity period for STV and CV (combo vouchers) from existing 90 days to 365 days in line with validity of data only vouchers, as this would benefit consumers from the hassles of frequent recharge.
“It is to be noted that increasing the cap on validity is no way prohibiting service providers to offer smaller validity packs,” Trai said.
Among other things, Trai also mandated retaining one top-up voucher of denomination of Rs 10, while allowing telcos to offer vouchers in any denomination of their choice.
Trai has also asked telcos to do away with colour coding of vouchers as it exists in the physical form, in view of the prominence of online recharges.