The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Saturday ordered Vodafone Idea and Airtel to stop offering premium 4G plans that promised faster speeds for customers paying more. The Economic Times first reported on the development. In letters and questionnaires to the telcos, TRAI asked the telcos how they would promise faster speeds for some consumers if telcos never promise baseline speeds for mobile broadband in the first place. The regulator also noted that Airtel introduced this plan at a time when telecom operators complained of increased network congestion amid the COVID-19 pandemic (Vodafone Idea had introduced a similar plan back in November). "Will the act of providing priority to some, not affect the QoS of the rest on the network, as you are not creating any additional capacity and re-distributing the existing capacity," TRAI asked the telcos in its questionnaire to them. A senior TRAI official told us that the letters were sent to protect the interests of customers on non-premium plans. In a statement shared with us, Airtel had this to say: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults, and have been consistently recognized by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience. At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end." Vodafone Idea…
