Mobile network operators which do not offer the ability to opt into out-of-bundle data billing will soon have to implement new systems.<\/p>\n
This comes as ICASA is set to publish<\/strong><\/a> new End-User and Subscriber Service Charter regulations in the government gazette this month.<\/p>\n Operators will then have a month from the date of publication to ensure they comply with the regulations, said ICASA.<\/p>\n ICASA said the new regulations will compel all networks to block out-of-bundle billing by default.<\/p>\n Operators may then offer subscribers the ability to opt in for out-of-bundle tariffs.<\/p>\n ICASA published its\u00a0draft End-User and Subscriber Service Charter regulations<\/strong><\/a> for comment in 2017, and\u00a0conducted public hearings on them at the beginning of March 2018.<\/p>\n Stakeholders expressed their opinions on the regulations, with\u00a0Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, and Telkom disagreeing with ICASA\u2019s proposal to regulate their out-of-bundle business rules.<\/p>\n Telkom argued ICASA should not prescribe that out-of-bundle billing must be disabled by default, but agreed that operators should offer the option to opt out.<\/p>\n Telkom already doesn\u2019t automatically bill users for out-of-bundle data usage.<\/p>\n The other three operators opposed the idea of regulating out-of-bundle billing entirely, whether through opt-in or opt-out regulations.<\/p>\n Despite strong opposition from mobile network operators, ICASA\u2019s new regulations state that subscribers must consent to being billed out-of-bundle.<\/p>\n ICASA said it avoided being too prescriptive in its new regulations regarding how operators may ask for consent to bill out-of-bundle.<\/p>\n It therefore allowed for an SMS, push notification, USSD, or other relevant method to be used.<\/p>\n Mobile network operators will have to implement new systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":173020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[355,35,18090,42,21391,41],"class_list":["post-257861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-independent-communications-authority-of-south-africa-icasa","tag-mtn","tag-out-of-bundle-oob","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257867,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257861\/revisions\/257867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}New regulations<\/h3>\n
Now read: The R21,729 difference between in-bundle and OOB data prices<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"