The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked the telcos to submit the details about all the segmented offers provided to the users between the January and November period in 2020. A few weeks back, the Supreme Court of India had asked both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to submit all the details regarding the segmented offers they were making to their users. General Solicitor Tushar Mehta representing Trai had put forth to the court earlier that telecom operators should not be creating a special class for customers by making anti-competitive offers — more on the story ahead.
Every Detail Regarding Segmented Offers Made to be Submitted Within 15 Days
All the details regarding segmented or specific orders such as their validity spans, the quantum of services, rates, name, terms and conditions, and benefits that came with them need to be provided by the telcos to the regulator. As per a report from ET Telecom, this needs to be done for all the segmented offers provided by the telcos between the January and November 2020 period.
Trai had finally got the support of the Supreme Court of India against an order given by the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) which sided with the appeal from telcos for not disclosing the details of their segmented offer.
The telcos had argued that if they disclosed the details of their segmented offers, their competition would be able to use it to their advantage. Considering this, the Supreme Court had asked the regulator to keep all the information of the offers classified.
An official from Trai said that the reason behind asking for the details of the segmented offers from telecom operators is to ensure that complete transparency is maintained within the system. Adding to this, the official said that without transparency, it would be hard to ensure non-discrimination between the same class of customers.
The regulator has said that the details of such segmented offers must be provided before 10 days from the last day of this month. This leaves the telcos with 15 days in their hands.
