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SINGAPORE: From March next year, consumers who apply for or renew a contract for a fixed line, mobile or broadband service cannot be locked into the contract for more than 24 months.
Also from next March, consumers who sign on a contract longer than three months and who terminate their contract before the end of their contract period will no longer have to pay a fixed early termination charge.
Instead, they will see these charges decrease over time on a month-by-month basis as they serve out their contract.
These are part of the new guidelines rolled out by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, or IDA, which seek to ensure that industry practices will be more reasonable and fair.
Under the new guidelines, operators offering telco services must also ensure that early termination charges do not include costs which they can avoid when the consumer terminates his service.
Such costs could include back-end administrative and operational costs that the operator would not have to incur once the customer terminates the service.
The new guidelines were prompted by consumers' concerns that contract periods might be becoming unduly long, and early termination charges excessively high, which together hinder them from terminating the service and switching between operators.
Industry watchers said the changes are not likely to impact telcos much, as they will just roll back on the freebies.
In emailed statements, StarHub said its standard contracts are already two years long and they have already implemented graduated early termination charges on mobile service agreements.
SingTel said it is committed to offering a range of services to stay at the forefront of the market.
- CNA/ir
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