Plea against Jio's free offer coming up in HC

Plea against Jio's free offer coming up in HC

MUMBAI: The Delhi High Court will be hearing a plea filed by Vodafone India alleging that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had failed to stop Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd's (RJio)'s what it called "blatant violation" of tariff orders, directions and regulations by allowing it to go on with its free offers.

On 30 January, Vodafone had moved the court alleging that TRAI failed to implement the telecom department's (DoT) circulars.

Earlier, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel had moved TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal) alleging that TRAI had been a mute spectator to the violations committed by Jio.

Race in the telecom industry meanwhile is getting intense. Airtel may now let customers enjoy free domestic roaming.The new offer seems to be in response to Jio’s introduction of new pricing plan. Airtel has reportedly decided to do away with national roaming charges on its network for both, internet services and calls. A formal announcement is yet to be made. The decision would benefit Airtel's about 268 million customers.

Meantime, a PwC report said the road ahead for Indian M&A seemed to be brightly illuminated. As per the report, PTI reported, the recent deals indicated an imminent need for consolidation in various sectors, sale of distressed assets by debt-laden companies and simplification of widely dispersed group companies. The report stated several sectors in India are in consolidation mode. For instance, it said, the telecom sector (Reliance Communications announced the acquisition of MTS India from Sistema).

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