South Africa’s telecoms regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has backed down from its draft proposals on minimum data bundle expiry periods of three years, with the final regulation stating that consumers need to be offered ‘a simple data rollover’.
In August 2017 the regulator proposed that data bundles should come with tiered expiry periods – the larger the bundle, the longer validity it would have – before suggesting in November that all pre-paid bundles should have a minimum validity of three years. CEO Willington Ngwepe now said that ICASA has decided to avoid prescribing a specific period for data expiry in the new legislation, which will be published in the Gazette next week.