The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has pulled-up operators for failing to comply with its order on seeking consumer?s consent before activating value added services (VAS).
TRAI has observed that even a year after it issued the regulation governing VAS it was still receiving consumer complaints against operators.
Early last year TRAI had asked mobile companies not to activate VAS without the consent of the subscribers. The operators were supposed to obtain confirmation from the consumer through an SMS, e-mail, fax or in writing, 24 hours prior to activating VAS.
Further, as per the TRAI?s guidelines every service provider has to inform the consumer through SMS at least three days before the date of renewal of a subscribed VAS. If there is insufficient balance in the pre-paid account of a consumer at the time of renewal of subscription to a VAS, the service provider shall send a request, through an SMS.
The operators have, however, implemented TRAI?s guidelines on VAS only partially. While they have started sending SMS alerts before the due date of subscription, they have expressed their inability to implement a system for seeking users? consent prior to activation. Instead, they have done away with the outsourcing model with VAS players in a bid to address the concerns raised by TRAI.
Mobile operators have brought in all push-promotions under an in-house model. This model will comprise a subscription engine, management system, hardware and software to have a greater control on the VAS activations. The mobile operators hope to implement this alternative mechanism across all circles by June 30, 2012.
