Reliance Jio Approaches TRAI to Impose Penalty on Airtel for ‘Misleading’ Free Services Ads: Report

Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has approached the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asking to impose a heavy fine on the India’s largest telecom operator, Airtel for misleading customers with their free services. The new entrant has sent out a letter to the TRAI saying that the representation of Airtel’s advertisements regarding their free calls and data services are ‘gross violation of extant telecommunication laws.’

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Jio has further urged that Airtel’s description is not correct as the company is not providing any FUP limit in neither of their ads, which is deceiving the consumers by a large extent. For example, consider the Airtel’s Rs. 345, which is not unlimited with a daily cap of 300 minutes and 1200 minutes per week, but Airtel is branding them as unlimited calling offers.

Jio is the same letter quoted as “Therefore, these prepaid packs do not provide unlimited free calling to customers. This fact is not discernable from the advertisements of Airtel, and neither does Airtel specify in the ads that such limitations apply or are conceived as part of the terms and conditions,” reports Live Mint.

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Jio also highlighted that the information related to the FUP is being informed to the customers only in a particular case and that too if the user approaches the customer care executive. Jio also claimed that Airtel free data offer for 12 months is also being advertised in a wrong manner as each user can avail free data only after recharging with Rs. 345. Also, the free 4G data benefits of 3GB per month for 12 months will cost Rs. 5400 per year, whereas the company is claiming as free benefits of Rs. 9000.