27 July 2017
JEDDAH: The Board of Directors of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) chaired by Minister Abdullah Al-Sawah, adopted decisions on absolute transparency in packages, offers and regulating the fair-use policy.

The new regulation provides for the abolition of all current fair-use policy practices on unlimited Internet packages applied by service providers to users. This is due to the lack of commitment by service providers to full transparency.

The regulation obligates service providers to lift all restrictions and to cancel the fair-use policy for all packages with unlimited Internet access within a maximum of 48 hours.

If the supplier wishes to apply the fair-use policy to current or future packages, the CITC will allow all service providers a maximum of 30 days to clarify their policies to all users with complete transparency.

The new regulation also stipulates that if a fair-use policy is applied to any current or future offer or package, the minimum fair-use obligation should be met.

The regulation also obliges service providers to be transparent and clear in all marketing of packages and offers to protect the rights of users, and to improve the experience of using the services.

These decisions were issued according to a study and evaluation of international experiences, an analysis of the service providers’ views and the complaints submitted to the authority.

This decision will come into force immediately from the date of its issuance.

Text of the new regulation in the case of the application of the fair use policy:

Service type
• Internet packages using voice slides

Minimum for fair use
• 3 GB/day after which the speed drops to 512 kbps/min

Service type
• Internet packages using data segments

Minimum for fair use
• 6 GB/day after which the speed drops to 1 Mbps at a minimum
• Ensure that no fair-use policy is applied to fixed broadband services or voice services.

© Arab News 2017