It’s up to service providers and network operators to determine the rules around data rollover, with communications regulator Icasa saying its new regulations dealing with data expiry are not “overly prescriptive” on the subject.

In a reasons document explaining its decisions in crafting the final regulations, published on Icasa’s website on Tuesday, the authority said it is “of the view that the business rules (including terms and conditions) relating to the rollover of unused data should be determined by licensees”.

“Without being overly prescriptive in respect of the expiry period of rolled over data, the authority would like to encourage licensees not to expire rolled over data before the expiry date of new allocated data bundle,” it said in the reasons document.

In practice, service providers, including mobile operators, will only have to roll over data for a period that it left entirely to their discretion.

However, Icasa said the provision “will benefit end users by minimising the risk of premature expiry of data bundles”.

“The authority is also of the view that this provision will not impact negatively on licensees as some licensees are (already) offering this option to their subscribers,” it said.

It said operators should deplete rolled over data first to ensure consumers “derive maximum benefit” from it.

In the last set of draft regulations, published in November, Icasa had proposed enforcing an expiry period of a minimum of three years for data bundles, but backed away from this position in the final regulations.

The other provisions of the regulations, known as the end-user and subscriber service charter amendment regulations, require service providers and operators to send usage depletion notifications (via SMS or other means) when usage reaches 50%, 80% and 100% depletion.

In addition, users may not be defaulted onto out-of-bundle data charges — first requiring to purchase a new data bundle — though consumers can elect to opt into an out-of-bundle option.

Operators must also provide consumers with an option to transfer data to other end users, provided they are on the same network.

Furthermore, they must conduct educational awareness campaigns aimed at informing end users about the use of smartphones and how to use data, among other things. They must conduct at least four of these “educational awareness campaigns” per year.