Telcos are Required to Inform Subscribers 30 Days Before the Closure of Services

In the last two years, we have seen a lot of small telcos exiting the market or merging with large telcos. During the process, telcos such as Aircel, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices made their subscribers suffer from their sudden exit plans. Taking such incidents to notice, the government has decided to make it mandatory for every telecom service provider to give at least 30 days advance notice to subscribers before shutting down the services. The development has come against the background of abrupt closure of services by some telecom operators recently which left their subscribers in lurch.

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Trai Should Be Notified by the Telco 60 Days in Advance

The new rule is part of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s recommendations on ‘Closure of Access Services’ that were approved by the Telecom Commission at its meeting held on October 17, 2018. “This was from point of view of ease of doing business and also customers are not put to great difficulty. It was decided that the customers are given 30 days notice before a service shut down and the licensor and Trai should be notified 60 calendar days in advance. Earlier no time limit was there,” Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters at PTI.

Following approval of Trai’s recommendation, the subscriber would also not need to port his mobile number on the same network if a particular technology is closed down but will need to port out if entire services of telecom operator are shut down.