Trai feels that the flurry of telephone plans confuse users

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Industry choice or confusion? Trai looks carefully at the mushroom recharge plans Jatin Grover 4 min Read 29 Apr 2025, 05:30 hours in December, Trai Mandate Telecommunications operators to offer separate recharge plans for voice and SMS services. Summary Trai feels too many telephone recharge plans will confuse users. Telcos such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio Infocomm think that it would shrink choices. Is too much choice a good thing? This is the question before India’s telecommunications -regulator investigates the multitude of mobile tariff plans offered by leading television. While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is concerned that a wave of options will overwhelm consumers and choose their unfit and more expensive plans, but the operators fear that it will reduce consumer’s choice and harm user income. The regulator recently discussed the matter with leaders of leading many many such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, three people who are aware of the development said on condition of anonymity. The businesses provided offers to the regulator on the number of tariff plans offered and their benefits to the user. ‘Trai investigation is currently in a preliminary stage and is undertaken with a focus on consumer interest. The increasing number of recharging plans launched by telecommunications operators often lead to confusion among users, which sometimes makes them choose plans for plans – and eventually pay more than needed, ‘one of the three people quoted above. According to a second person, the telcos told different people to the regulator that different plans target different sets of users – for example, heavy users of streaming, education or cricket – were not impressed by their logic. The regulator sought information about the number of users who subscribed to different plans, the person added. Read also | Telcos warns of delays in the network, while states on infra rules are under the telcos, vodafone idea, have about 150 plans on the offer, Jio and Airtel 100 each, and BSNL around 80 plans, the second person said. “The wide variety of plans and the minimal difference in rates between them prevent consumers from making informed decisions,” the third person said, and Trai considers the matter from the consumer’s point of view. Inquiries were remained unanswered by e -mail to the telecom operators and Tri on Monday. Cap on tariff plans A 2006 tariff order set a shell of 25 tariff plans, including both to paid and prepaid tariff plans; However, a manager of the telecommunications industry said the telecommunications operators did not violate the order. “The tariff plans offered are always less than 25. The plans listed on the websites/apps of operators are a variation of the 25 basic rates, which are nominated as special tariff vouchers, supplements, promotional offers, etc., according to the needs of consumers,” said the executive. The executive added that the TTO (telecommunications tariff order) of 25 applies only to full-fledged plan vouchers. Other categories, such as supplemental evidence and special tariff vouchers, are not subject to this limitation. Read it | Telcos to profit profit. Airtel leads the package in September quarter a second executive at a telecommunications operator claims that rates in India are under treaty – essentially free to determine rates – and tria should not try to regulate business dynamics of telecom operators. “The operators recently only introduced voting plans on the intervention of trai. However, there is hardly any recording of the individual plans,” the executive added. Market dynamics according to analysts, if trai decides to prune the number of plans, it will affect the structure of pricing and market dynamics in the short term, but telcos can optimize pricing strategies to ensure that the average revenue per user (ARPU) remains stable or even grows as rates are under scrutiny. “Choosing recharging plans has always been confusing. Telecommunications operators need to rationalize the tariff structure, which helps consumers make decisions about how much they would go out daily when choosing a specific plan,” said Techarc chief analyst Faisal Kawoosa. Kawoosa also pointed to the need to educate consumers about the right rates for it. And read | Mint Explainer: Why Telcos is looking for a fair share of OTTAPPs in December on bundled plans, trai -telecommunications -operators mandate to offer separate recharge plans only for voting and SMS services. This was done to give certain consumers an option to pay only for the services they need. Trai said the data with recharging plans asks such users to also pay for the additional data service they do not need, Trai said. Catch all the industry news, bank news and updates on live currency. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Telecom Mint Specials