The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed all the telecom service providers to prevent misleading tariff advertisement. This has been done in order to further improve transparency in telecom tariff offers for facilitating the telecom subscribers to choose the tariff plans that best meet their need.

"No tariff plan should be offered, presented, marketed or advertised in a manner that is likely to mislead the subscribers," Trai said in its Consumers Handbook on Telecommunications.

 “A tariff advertisement is considered to be misleading, which in any way, is likely to induce the consumer to subscribe to a tariff plan, which he would not have subscribed, contains an untrue statement, omits a material fact having bearing on  the subscriber’s decision; and fails to disclose attached limitations and restrictions”, Trai said .

The regulator has directed the service providers that advertisements published by them should be transparent and non misleading and unambiguous.

It also asked them to disclose all material information in unambiguous manner; obtain the website address and customer care number of the telecom access service provider and the advertisements issued in vernacular languages contain all the mandatory disclosures in the same vernacular language. 

"The service providers also have to publish all the tariff plans in prescribed formats in at least one regional language and one English newspaper at an interval not more than six months," it said.  

The service providers have also been directed to maintain an advertisement register which must include a specimen of every tariff related advertisements, and carry out internal audit to ensure that they are complying with all aspects of this Direction and to report compliance to the Authority on half yearly basis.  

Besides, telecom operators can't increase tariffs of subscriber plans for six months from the enrolment date but they are free to reduce call rates at the same time, sectoral regulator Trai said.

"A tariff plan once offered by an access provider shall be available to a subscriber for a minimum period of six months from the date of enrolment of the subscriber to that tariff plan," Trai said.

However, for any tariff plan, the operator is free to reduce tariffs at any time but "no tariff item in a tariff plan can be increased by the service provider," it added.