DoT Sets Limit for Mobile Content Payments for Prepaid, Postpaid Users

Mobile subscribers cannot pay more than Rs. 20,000 in one tranche to buy a service or download content by using their prepaid account balance or through postpaid bills, the Department of Telecom said on Tuesday.

"The subscribers can download all paid digital contents through their mobile phones and the payments for such contents can be made using their mobile prepaid account balance or postpaid bill payment methodology with a maximum value not exceeding Rs. 20,000 each time," a DoT order said.

Many subscribers pay for downloading digital contents like mobile application, ebooks, movies etc through their prepaid balance or postpaid bill system option.

The system is helpful for those subscribers who do not have access to debit, credit cards or net banking system.

The DoT said that payment made by using mobile balance or bill will not be deducted from telecom operators total revenue to calculate adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

"Such purchase of digital content shall not be treated as pass-through revenue for the purpose of computing AGR for licence fee and spectrum usage charge," the note said.

Telecom operators in the country are required to pay a percentage of adjusted gross revenue to the government as it is net amount earned by them from sale of telecom services.