The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) plans to publish the final End-user and Subscriber Service Charter Regulations by the end of April following a round of public hearings to unpack industry submissions over the perceived high cost of data and high out-of-bundles data rates.

Mobile operators MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, Telkom and Liquid Telecoms, besides others, are presenting, on Thursday and Friday, their inputs into the second draft of the regulations, which aims to develop minimum standards for the provision of data, short message service and voice services in line with Section 69 of the Electronic Communications Act.

“We do not seek to indirectly or directly regulate the price of data services,” assured Icasa chairperson Councillor Botlenyana Mokhele on Thursday.

The amendments to the regulations propose an adjustment to the timeframes for the expiry of data bundles, with a minimum period of three years, as well as the rolling over of unused monthly data.

The authority pointed out that the current bundles extended from ten days for bundles between 1 MB and 50 MB and up to 24 months for 20 GB.

The draft regulations also propose that licencees should send data use notifications for data depletion and for end-users to be able to opt in or out of out-of-bundle pricing.

Following the round of public hearings, participants will have until March 9 to submit further clarifying information.