By Chris Skeldon 
The National Telecommunications Authority (Anacom) has approved a draft resolution ordering telecom operators to stop implementing zero-ratings and similar offers. Zero-rated offers are offers in which the data consumption of one or more content, applications or services does not count towards the consumption of the data volume associated with the shared offer by the customer.🇧🇷
For example, in cases where the customer has 10 GB for general use, but unlimited data for applications such as Whatsapp or Instagram.
The problem, according to the regulator, violates the European Union’s principle of neutrality, which aims to ensure operators treat all online traffic equally, regardless of the type of content and services involved.
Termination of these offers, Anacom informs in a memo sent to newsrooms, “must take place within 20 business days after the final decision date, in the case of offers available for new subscriptions, and 90 business days after the final decision date in the case of contracts in progress.” After the date of the final decision, Internet access service providers have 90 business days to communicate to Anacom detailed information on changes that have been made to the respective offerings to accommodate the decision, as well as information that has been disclosed to end users. The authority also recommends, within the scope of the changes to be made, “to protect the rights and interests of users, to minimize any effects arising from this process of change, and to provide greater amounts of data for public access to the Internet, at least to the total volume of data currently available to users.”
In 2018, Anacom already recommended that operators approximate traffic volumes between different “places of use”, preferably by increasing general traffic volumes. However, after continuous monitoring, Anacom reported that zero-rating and similar offers “were increasing in Portugal,” which now accounts for a large proportion of the offerings in the national market.
In addition, it is worth noting thatceilings General data has not undergone major changes over the past few years regarding the volume of data included in the basic tariff, while “ceilings It was not only available in tariffs that did not include this type of offer, which led to the emergence of new offers with characteristics Zero ratingAs in some tariffs there has been an increase in the designated movement limit. Therefore, there is no evidence of acceptance of Anacom’s recommendation, in its 2018 decision,” the regulator stresses.
Anacom’s decision will be subject to public consultation through December 15, 2022.