Vodafone Idea has appealed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's Saturday order directing the telco to stop offering its priority 4G plan. The appeal was filed at the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, and the first hearing in the matter took place on Tuesday afternoon, according to TDSAT's schedule for the day. TRAI requested time to file a reply, and the matter will next be heard on July 16, a person working on the case told MediaNama. At question is TRAI's letter to Vodafone Idea (and Airtel) ordering the telcos to stop offering "priority 4G", where the telcos promised faster speeds for customers who paid more. TRAI ordered the telcos to stop the practice so that they would have time to examine how exactly this prioritisation scheme would be carried out, and if there would be any impact on users who are not on the priority tier. Read TRAI's letters and questionnaires on priority 4G: TRAI letter to Airtel | TRAI letter to Vodafone Idea | TRAI questionnaire to Airtel | TRAI questionnaire to Vodafone Idea TRAI’s questions to telcos Here’s an edited version of TRAI’s questions to telcos. There’s increased congestion in telecom networks and consumers are complaining of lower speeds. How will Vodafone Idea/Airtel ensure that non-premium customers continue to get good quality of service? Isn’t redistributing existing resources going to impact quality of service for customers paying less? Telcos have always said that since signal strength and bandwidth depend on a variety of factor for mobile broadband, they cannot commit to an…
