NTA mobile pulse rates hit users’ pockets, lobbyists say

Consumer rights activists in Nepal say that the regulator’s rules on mobile pulse rates are costing end users, who are forced to pay for time they have not used, The Himalayan News Service reports. The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) currently fixes the mobile rates in blocks of 20 seconds, meaning that consumers pay for each block regardless of whether they have talked for that time or not. One activist, Jyoti Baniya, argues that the existing regime contravenes Nepal’s Consumer Rights Protection Act, claiming that: ‘Consumers should not be made liable to pay for the time that they have not used.’ Further, Baniya argues that due to excessively high rates for dropped calls in the country, those affected are losing ‘millions of rupees’ under the 20-second pulse rate rules, and says that the NTA should shift to a per-second pulse rate so that end users are not ‘cheated’. He says that the Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights has pledged to raise the matter with the government.