TRAI releases draft on ‘Quality of Service Regulations 2023’

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, today released draft Regulation on Review of The Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulations, 2023 and draft Guidelines for this regulation.

Accuracy of metering and billing of telecom services has been a prime focus of the Regulator to protect the interest of consumers. In this regard, TRAI had notified the Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulation, 2006, on 21st March 2006. These regulations contain a Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy which is to be complied by all Basic Service Providers, Unified Access Service Providers and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service Providers. The amendment to the Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulation, 2006, was issued on 25.03.2013.

Over the time, the te1ecom networks have undergone significant changes, and many new services are offered by the te1ecom service providers. Additionally, tariffs against the services offered have also undergone significant changes specially after introduction of unlimited data or voice plans with fixed tariffs on daily/monthly/yearly basis. All these new tariff offerings provide unlimited usage with certain limits under Fair Usage Policy(FUP), thereby shifting focus from itemized billing to committed volume of data or voice or SMS on daily basis or till the expiry of validity of the subscribed tariff offering.

New IP based networks such as LTE/5G technologies, carrying voice over data have now shifted billing from per second/minute based billing to data volume based billing. Accordingly, service providers are expected to have advanced, robust and scalable IT products for accurate billing of various services being offered to consumers.

In view of the above, the Authority undertook a public consultation, by releasing a Consultation Paper on “Review of The Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulations, 2006′ on 1st September 2020 seeking comments and counter comments ofstakeholders by 27thOct 2020 and 10thNov2020 respectively.

In response, the Authority received written comments from 13 stakeholders and 1 counter comment, held Open House Discussions (OHD)and subsequent discussions with the stakeholders and empaneled auditors. All inputs/ comments received have been considered by the Authority while finalizing these draft Regulations and Guidelines. However, before issuing final regulations by repealing previous regulations and their amendments on the subject, Authority decided to put forward draft regulations and guidelines in public domain for considerations ofthe stakeholders and offerfurther comments, if any.

CT Bureau