The freebies of telecom market may soon cease to exist as in lieu of the demands of some of the operating telecom companies, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is all set to hold a meeting on July 21 in the bid to seek the opinions of the operators on the issue of fixing “minimum floor price” for data and voice tariffs.
Currently, the telecom companies are only required to report the plans to TRAI within the span of a week’s time and thus they virtually have the right to fix any rate for the SMS, voice and data services.
The demand of floor price first came into existence last month at the industry’s meeting with the regulators and separately with the inter-ministerial group (IMG) where Idea Cellular in its presentation highlighted the losses and negative returns of the industry the root of which lies in overwhelmingly low tariffs.
The pundits of the industry reckon that the demands for the minimum price for data and voice calls are being raised in the wake of Reliance Jio’s spectacular entry into the telecom market and, subsequently, its meteoric rise. As a result of the free promotional voice and data offer, launched in September last year, this Mukesh Ambani owned telecom provider boasts of having a customer base of more than 100 million.
While interacting with MSMN on this issue, one of the Jio users, Avantika Jaya, a student of accountancy, agreed that such “freebies” affect the telecom industry as a whole in the long run. She said, “I have learned that the telecom industry is running into a massive debt and such freebies will just add to the misery.”
On July 21 TRAI will not only take into account the detail arguments and presentations of the telecom company in the context of floor price demand but is also expected to ask the telecom companies why an upper ceiling for tariffs is not similarly justified.
