TRAI blocks Bharti Airtel and Vodafone’s latest premium plans

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday blocked  Bharti Airtel’s Platinum and Vodafone Idea’s RedX premium plans, which offer high speed data and priority services to customers, saying that “such schemes violate service norms and could impact the customers not paying for the plans”.

A TRAI official told Print, “It (the plans) is in violation of quality of service norms. It shortchanges the existing customers and it is also not clear what the new customers are being offered as the parameters are not quantifiable.”

But a senior telecom analyst spoke otherwise, stating that the plans do not break any net neutrality rules since high subscription packages for better services can always be offered by service providers. 

Bhart Airtel Ltd had announced a high-speed 4G data plan for its platinum postpaid customers paying Rs 499 or above on July 6 while Vodafone Idea had introduced its RedX plan in November 2019 for postpaid customers at a price of Rs 999, offering up to 50% faster speeds and special services which was hiked by Rs 100. 

According to a liveMint report, Bharti Airtel chief executive officer (CEO) Gopal Vittal in a communication to users said, “The good news is that for all of you who are a part of Airtel Platinum, we have launched several new features to ensure an un-interrupted work from home experience. You now have access to Preferential 4G Network, which translates into higher data speeds.”