Telcos comply with TRAI's directive on coupons with 30-day expiration date

The directive's implementation allowed prepaid users to benefit from postpaid-like billing procedures, where a bill is created every month, regardless of how many days there are in a month.

All mobile carriers have reportedly compiled with a previous order from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) requiring them to include at least one plan voucher (PV), one special tariff voucher (STV), and one combo coupon (CV) with 30-days validity among their tariff offers.

According to the regulator, customers can subscribe to monthly coupons and vouchers that renew on the same day of every month on the websites of mobile providers.

Operators must now provide 30-day vouchers and reoccurring monthly prepaid plans under revisions to the Telecommunications Tariff Order that TRAI published in January. After receiving complaints from customers about telecom service providers(TSPs)' pricing offers with a 28-day validity period rather than tariff offers with a 30-day or monthly validity period, it issued the order.

The directive's implementation allowed prepaid users to benefit from postpaid-like billing procedures, where a bill is created every month, regardless of how many days there are in a month.

The bulk of prepaid tariff bundles with a validity duration of 28/56/84 days were being offered by telcos prior to the TRAI regulation. However, customers emphasized that they had to perform 13 recharges using the 28-day validity pack, which was advertised as a monthly pack, over the course of an year. Only 12 recharges are necessary in a year if the recharge process is completed on a monthly basis.