Information Communication Technology (ICT) Expert Duncan Macleud has warned that telecommunications regulatory body Icasa may have difficulties regulating the price of data.
Icasa announced Friday that, from now on consumers will no longer be billed out of data bundle rates.
This means when data finishes on their mobile devices, it will not start to use up air time.
The regulations will also allow subscribers to roll over their unused data to the next month, transfer data to other people on the same networks and for service providers to notify users when their data goes below 50%.
Macleud says this is a great move, but regulating data at wholesale level is something else.
“I think the regulations are generally to be welcomed. They are backtracking a lot from earlier positions that ICASA took. And I think they are also healthy for the long term of the industry. I think the previous pieces of draft regulation around this consumer charter were fairly populous in nature. For example they were suggesting data expiry of three years which will have a negative impact in the ability of networks to do planning.”
Click below to watch video:
