Telcos reject call for cheaper, standalone voice & SMS plans
Telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea rejected the sector watchdog’s proposal to mandate affordable, standalone voice and SMS plans for consumers, even as advocates for consumer rights argued that low-income, rural and elderly users are unfairly forced to buy packs of mobile data even if they don’t use them.
Telcos urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to maintain status quo on tariff plans even as the regulator proposed mandating affordable standalone voice and SMS plans (without data) with short validity options, arguing that the proposed mandate is anti-consumer, technically unsound and violates the regulator’s long-standing stance on market forbearance.
