Pretoria – The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa ("ICASA") published a media statement on 11 February 2019 indicating slight amendments to the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Regulations (“the First 2019 Amendment Regulations”) in order to bring certainty and to ensure that the enforcement and implementation of the Regulations does not result in unintended consequences for licensees and consumers.

Subsequent to the publication of the First 2019 Amendment Regulations on 12 February 2019, the Authority received requests to suspend the implementation date for certain regulations relating to an option to opt-out of notification for depletion of voice, SMS and data services and the out-of-bundle usage requirements in the First 2019 Amendment Regulations. After careful consideration, ICASA decided to extend the date for the implementation of the above regulations to 12 April 2019.

ICASA expects licensees to use this time to configure their systems and business processes in order to fully comply with the aforementioned regulations by 12 April 2019.

To ensure that the spirit and intention of the amendments to the Regulations is still retained, the transfer and rollover of unused data before expiry requirements as well as prohibition of defaulting an end-user onto out of bundle charges upon depletion of data bundles as prescribed in the 2018 Amendment Regulations shall be applicable and are to be implemented with effect from 01 March 2019.

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For all media enquiries please contact:

Paseka Maleka

012 568 3455

079 509 0702 pmaleka@icasa.org.za