Vodafone Idea Limited had been going back and forth with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) discussing its ‘Priority 4G Network’. For the unaware, the Priority 4G Network is a service offered to the customers who are opting the RedX postpaid plans of Vi. The Priority 4G Network plan has been removed after the rebranding of Vodafone Idea to Vi and is no longer on offering to the customers. This is so that Vi can save itself from any trouble arising from the end of Trai. Trai had asked Vodafone earlier about why did the telco not submit its Priority 4G Network offering as a new kind of service.
Priority 4G Network Benefit Scrapped from the Offerings
Priority 4G network promised customers a higher internet speed and priority when dealing with customer care service. As per an ET Telecom report, the service has been scrapped by the telco now. Trai had questioned the telco about the service saying that it is misleading the customers. Yet the website of the telco is showing that there is priority customer service still on offer.
Back in November 2019, when the offering was launched, the customers were promised that they will get 50% faster 4G speeds than the average customers. Later in May, Vodafone had changed the benefit from saying 50% faster speed to just the ‘Priority 4G Network’ offering faster speeds.
One of the major questions that Trai had related to the offering was that whether it would degrade the internet speed that is offered to the telco's normal customers. Trai was looking to ban the offering from Vodafone saying that the plan is making false claims about providing users with faster speeds.
Adding to that, Trai isn’t very happy with the reply that Vi has provided to its show-cause notice issued. The regulator believes that the ‘Priority 4G Service’ is not a continuous benefit and that it is only applied when there is network congestion. So essentially, RedX customers were not getting any kind of fast 4G speed but normal speeds during the peak hours.
