The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (‘TRAI’) has issued the Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulations, 2023 (‘QoS Regulation 2023’), which mandates access services licensees (i.e., licensees holding unified access service license or unified license with access service authorisation) (‘Applicable Licensees’) to comply with the code of practice prescribed under the QoS Regulation 2023. The Applicable Licensees are required to have its centralised or distributed metering and billing systems, and Licensed Service Areas being served by such systems (‘LSA’) audited by a panel of auditors notified by TRAI, on an annual basis. The audits are intended to detect instances of overcharging subscribers and failure to refund the overcharged amounts, for which TRAI can determine and impose financial disincentives. TRAI has introduced flexibility in implementation for Applicable Licensees, if at least one LSA is audited each quarter, and each LSA and billing system is audited at least once a year. TRAI has therefore sought to balance the interests of subscribers and reduce compliance burden on the telcos. The QoS Regulation 2023 will come into force on April 01, 2024, and repeal the Quality of Service (Code of Practice for Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulation, 2006.