Reliance Jio, Airtel in 'tariff war' again

Bent telcos sparred with Reliance Jio over the matter of transparency of tariff plans, with Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular saying that some offers, especially counter offers to retain users, need to be kept confidential to protect the competitive advantage while the newcomer batted for all plans to be made public on a common platform.

Segregation between new and existing users while offering tariff plans should be allowed, the telcos told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in an open house discussion on tariff assessment Tuesday, adding that retention offers - effectively discounts - were not arbitrary and instead based on a number of parameters including average revenue per user and customer loyalty.

The regulator plans to issue guidelines or an order in 30 days on issues such as disclosures on tariffs, promotional offers, discount and duration, non-discrimination in service offers and predatory pricing.

"When a customer wants to leave — going out of a continued relationship between customer and operator — this is the fundamental right of the operator to retain that customer, and it is not only specific to telecom industry... it is there for any industry where you can match the offer (from a rival)," said Ravi Gandhi, regulatory head of Bharti Airtel. Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy and planning at Reliance Jio disagreed.

"Current measures for transparency are not adequate because the specification of transparency in the industry is not consistent, therefore we again urge that all plans that are being offered by telcos are published in a common platform and people can see the plans, and nothing beyond those plans is offered to anyone else," Thakur said.

"The customer should be able to choose what's best for him, because they're the ones paying. Only the authority can offer this," he added. The comments come within days of the Trai barring carriers from offering different plans to subscribers in the same category, effectively limiting them from offering specific plans to specific subscribers.

Trai had also asked telcos to transparently disclose to the regulator all plans being offered to all customers. "If they were to put transparently on their website that any customer coming to me saying that if you ask me that I'm moving out, I will drop the rate, then every customer will come... that is why retention plans cannot be put on the website, as this will become the rule and the moment you change the rule, you're changing the tariff plan itself," Airtel's Gandhi said.

Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said that there was a need to make a distinction between acquisition of a new customer and retention of an existing customer in terms of the offers that are being made. "In a competitive environment re-acquisition of a customer cost is also not trivial."


The Trai issued the order last week, reacting to complaints from customers and new entrant Reliance Jio, that incumbents were giving customised plans to retain customers seeking to switch their loyalties to Reliance Jio, which were not publicly available, thus being non-transparent and discriminatory.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Measures to reduce body weight after delivery

Image
Hello friends! My name is Rahul and I’m a personal trainer in a very large gym. I have written this post on the request of one of my clients and my readers, and the truth, even for my own benefit (so that I do not have to repeat all the same thing repeatedly). How to reduce weight fast How to reduce 25 kg in a month? Many men and women ask this question. The problems of most customers are the same, spend sitting-sitting life, working continuously, not having time for themselves In fact, the thing is that people generally ignore a very straightforward rule, this is the rule: burn more than the calories you eat! And that’s why people do not lose weight! Types of Diet to Lose Weight We have to limit calorie intake to lose weight. In different diets, the quantity of calories eating is limited by the use of different products. First method 1- You can not reduce fat and many people mistakenly treat fat as a diet. If the amount of carbohydrate is not limited, then the body will get more energ
Read more

I happened to be 10 years old, read interesting and unheard of

Image
Ten years ago Apple company launched the first iPhone. Then nobody was convinced that this would prove to be a revolutionary product and change the lives of people. So far, more than one billion iPhones have been sold and Apple is the world's most valued company. One look at the important things related to Apple's ten-year journey - - Brian Merchant has written a book, 'The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone'. In this book, he has told Bariki how it works in Apple. From the selection of raw materials to the grand launch of the product, such things have been told, from which the outer world was unaware so far. - What has already been discussed in the past. They are - Multitouch Technology itself Apple did not invent. Steve Jobs wanted that the screen of the iPhone be made of plastic rather than glass, and this idea came to him just before the launch. In the meanwhile, the merchant has written the statement of industrial design engineer Brian Hoppy who has serve
Read more

These 5 laptops are best for students in India, equipped with every faculty.

Image
Like computers today, laptops are quite popular. Perhaps this is the reason why today many big companies have come into this area because of the demand for laptops. Most importantly, these companies are also preparing laptops with expensive laptops, along with better features in the Aam Aadmi's budget. With this, companies are also launching in the laptop market, which has been made keeping in mind the students with special care. So that they can take these laptops easily. Dell XPS 13 It has 7th Generation Intel Core i3 - i7. The laptop has 4 GB RAM and 16 GB of storage. Dell XPS 13 laptop has 13.3 inch FHD screen. Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is a better laptop. In which the full version of Windows 10 works. It has 4 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. In addition, the Surface Pro 4 laptop comes with a 12.3-inch display. Samsung Notebook 7 Spin This laptop is available in two display sizes of 15.6 inch. This laptop has an additional video HDR mode. This laptop is based on
Read more