Government makes this ‘big’ clarification on Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea’s mobile tariff hike

The government has refuted misleading claims that it allowed Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea to unilaterally announce tariff hikes without any regulation. All three telecom players recently increased the price of their prepaid and postpaid plans that came into effect starting July 3, 2024.

In an official press release, the regulatory body said that with three private sector players and one public sector player, the current mobile services market operates through the market forces of demand and supply.The rates of telecommunication services, the release said are decided by market forces, within the regulatory framework notified by the independent regulator ie. TRAI or Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
“The Government does not intervene in the free market decisions as the functionality is under the domain of TRAI and tariffs are under forbearance,” it stated. “Any change in the tariff of mobile services is notified by TSPs to the TRAI, which monitors, that such changes are within the prescribed regulatory framework.”

In the release, the government highlighted how Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have increased the prices of mobile services after more than 2 years.
“In last 2 years, some of the TSPs have invested heavily in rolling out the 5G services across the country. This has resulted into a significant increase in median mobile speed to the level of 100 Mbps and jump in the India’s international rank from 111, in October 2022, to 15 today.”
“While protecting the interests of subscribers, for the orderly growth of the telecommunication sector, which includes investments in latest technologies like 5G, 6G, IoT/ M2M for Industry 4.0 etc., “the financial viability of the sector is important,” said the TRAI.