NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today asked all Telecom access service providers to prevent misleading tariff advertisements to further improve transparency in telecom tariff offers for facilitating the telecom subscribers to choose the tariff plans that best meet their needs,.

This Direction, ‘Preventing Misleading Tariff Advertisements’, has been finalised after extensive consultations with the stakeholders including holding ‘Open House Discussions’ at various places across the country.

A tariff advertisement is considered to be misleading as it 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.

Through this Direction, the telecom access service providers have been directed to give advertisements that are transparent and non-misleading and unambiguous; disclose all material information in unambiguous manner; contain 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 have been mandated 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.