Telecom major Reliance Jio has filed a complaint with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India against rival Vi, saying the latter is making it difficult for entry-level customers to port out to a different telecom provider.
Over the last couple of weeks, all three telecom players—Jio, Airtel and Vi have hiked their prepaid tariffs in the range of 20 to 25 percent.
Vi’s entry-level plan starts from Rs 99. However, this package does not have free SMS services. To avail of that, a Vi user needs to opt for a Rs 179 plan, which in addition offers unlimited calling, 300 SMS and 2GB of data.
Jio’s prepaid plan with free SMS service starts from Rs 91 for 23 days, for non-Jio Phone users.
In the letter to Trai, Jio has claimed that Vi hiked tariffs on the lowest prepaid pack with free SMS to Rs 179 so as to restrict prepaid users from porting out of the network.
A user has to send an SMS from the existing network to port to a different network. This means that customers wanting to send an SMS will have to pay more. Lower-end customers may not want to buy the more expensive plan, and the ones who have already paid for the new plan would not want to shift to a new network, creating a hurdle for customers looking to change networks.
Sources familiar with the development said the regulator was looking into the matter.
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