From Data Expiry to Data Credits: A Policy Proposal for Enhancing Consumer Welfare in India's Telecom Sector

Priyanka Kumari Jangra

From Data Expiry to Data Credits: A Policy Proposal for Enhancing Consumer Welfare in India's Telecom Sector

Author(s)	Priyanka Kumari Jangra
Country	India
Abstract	India has emerged as the world's second-largest telecom market with over 1.2 billion wireless subscribers and the highest average mobile data consumption per user globally. Indian mobile subscribers collectively consume more than 40 billion gigabytes of data per month, driven by the transformative impact of Jio's entry in 2016 and the subsequent tariff wars that made mobile data among the cheapest in the world. Yet, despite this impressive quantitative growth, a fundamental consumer welfare deficit persists at the heart of India's telecom sector: the systematic expiry of unused prepaid mobile data at the end of daily, weekly, or monthly validity cycles. Subscribers who have legitimately paid for a data allowance routinely forfeit a portion of that allowance upon expiry a practice that raises serious questions of consumer equity, market fairness, and regulatory adequacy. This paper argues that the current data expiry model constitutes an implicit tax on consumers disproportionately affecting lower-income prepaid subscribers and proposes a Data Credits Framework as a policy reform to address this deficit. The Data Credits Framework would require telecom operators to carry forward a defined proportion of unused data as credits into the next billing cycle, subject to a maximum accumulation cap and a defined utilization period. The proposal draws on comparative international experience from the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and South Korea, and engages with the regulatory mandate and institutional capacity of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The paper also analyses the economic implications of the reform for operator revenues, spectrum utilization efficiency, and consumer surplus, and proposes a graduated implementation pathway that balances consumer welfare objectives with the commercial sustainability of the sector.
Keywords	Data Expiry, Data Credits, Telecom Consumer Welfare, TRAI, Prepaid Mobile Data, Data Rollover, Consumer Protection, India Telecom Regulation, Mobile Data Policy, Digital Inclusion.
Field	Sociology > Economics
Published In	Volume 16, Issue 2, July-December 2025
Published On	2025-12-16

View / Download PDF File

About IJAIDR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us	Message on WhatsApp	+91-9687-182-185	editor@ijaidr.com

Journal of Advances in Developmental Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

From Data Expiry to Data Credits: A Policy Proposal for Enhancing Consumer Welfare in India's Telecom Sector

Share this