NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) has issued its consultation document on proposed revisions to the consumer protection regulations for the country's electronic communications sector. 

The regulations were originally introduced nearly a decade ago. The regulator noted in a statement that given the time that has passed since the regulations were published, the changes that have occurred in the sector markets, and URCA's experience with handling consumer complaints since 2013, it has proposed revisions intended to modernize the regulations.

The statement further stated that is recommendations are intended to "clarify ambiguous parts of the regulations" and "issue new measures in areas where consumers were not protected."

"Some key areas where changes are proposed to better protect consumers are: broadening the scope of who should provide a minimum level of service to consumers; making consumers more aware of fair use policies; ensuring consumers are fully aware of all aspects of the service they are paying for; ensuring consumers are not misled by advertisements of unlimited services; better informing consumers of planned and unplanned service outages; more easily opting out of receiving unsolicited text messages that contain advertisements; and reducing the allowed length of time for resolution of consumer complaints," URCA wrote.

The consultation document also contains other changes intended to strengthen consumer protections. 

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