{"id":190984,"date":"2017-08-08T09:57:57","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T07:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=190984"},"modified":"2017-08-08T09:57:57","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T07:57:57","slug":"major-new-data-voice-and-sms-laws-that-you-need-to-know-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/190984\/major-new-data-voice-and-sms-laws-that-you-need-to-know-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Major new data, voice and SMS laws that you need to know about"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government has taken it&#8217;s first big step in regulating mobile data in South Africa, including a number of new laws that Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom will have to follow.<\/p>\n<p>Published in a government gazette on Monday, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has recommended that a number of changes be made to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) which broadly governs telecommunication in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest of these will address the controversial issue of data as well as usage and out-of-bundle charges, but the amendments also introduce changes to voice, SMS and education.<\/p>\n<p>Interested parties have 30 days to offer submissions on the new changes before they are officially considered before Parliament and put into law.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>1. Voice and SMS<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>A Licensee (for example, Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom) must now send notifications for voice and SMS usage intervals to an end-user. The intervals must show 50%, 75%, 90% and 100% service depletion. The notification must be through SMS or any other applicable means.<\/li>\n<li>Licensees must provide end-users who are on post-paid (contract)\/hybrid (top-up) plans with an option to buy additional voice services or text services upon depletion of such.<\/li>\n<li>Where an end-user who is on a post-paid\/hybrid tariff plan does not buy additional voice services or text services, the licensee will disconnect the end-user from access to services and allow such end-users to only use emergency services and customer care services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>2. Data<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom and other licensees must provide a mechanism for end-users to opt-in for or opt-out of bundle charges when their data bundle is depleted.<\/li>\n<li>This includes\u00a0depletion notifications on regular intervals through SMS, USSD or any other applicable means &#8211; the interval must show 50%, 75%, 90% and 100% depletion of data bundles.<\/li>\n<li>Warning notifications when his\/her data bundle has completely run out or is depleted.<\/li>\n<li>An option to buy additional data bundles upon depletion of his \/ her allocated data through the USSD platform or any other applicable means.<\/li>\n<li>Can no longer be\u00a0defaulted automatically to out of bundle data charges upon depletion of his \/ her data bundles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>Data roll-over\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom and other licensees must adhere to the table below with regard to the validity period for data expiry.<\/p>\n<p>They must notify its users with expiry of their data period within seven (7) days prior to expiry date of such data.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, they <strong>must provide users with an option to roll over unused data<\/strong> when users recharge with data bundles before the expiry date.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bt_table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th style=\"text-align: center;\">Data bundle sizes<\/th>\n<th style=\"text-align: center;\">Validity period<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a01MB -50MB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>10 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a050MB-500MB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>30 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0500MB-1GB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>60 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a01GB-5GB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>90 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a05GB-10GB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>180 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a010GB-20GB<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>12 months<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a020GB+<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>24 months<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>3. Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Finally, the new changes require\u00a0Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom and other licensees to conduct a number of new\u00a0education awareness campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>This includes\u00a0educating users on the use of smart phones; educating users on how to use data; and educating users on a broad range of products and services offered.<\/p>\n<p>Each licensee must conduct at least\u00a0four quarterly education campaigns per annum.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/190636\/how-much-your-free-phone-actually-costs-on-your-new-contract\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How much your \u201cfree phone\u201d actually costs on your new contract<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government has finally begun instituting laws to address &#8220;Data must fall&#8221; &#8211; and there are a number of big changes all mobile phone users in South Africa need to know about. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":187003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-190984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190984"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191036,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190984\/revisions\/191036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}