Supreme Court order: Telcos can offer segmented tariffs but Trai can ask for details

The Supreme Court on Friday struck a balance between regulatory principles and competitiveness of telecom operators by way of offering segmented tariffs to their high Arpu (average revenue per user) customers. While it said that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is well within its powers to ask for any information from the telecom operators with regard to their segmented offers (discounts which are not part of standard tariff package), this came with a caveat that the same cannot be published or disclosed to competitors. This restraint does not apply to normal tariff packages, which are in public domain.

What goes in favour of the operators (Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea) is that they have not been stopped from offering segmented offers as initially directed by Trai in 2018 on the grounds that such tariffs are discriminatory in nature. The telecom operators had wanted both – to offer segmented tariffs as well not provide any details of it to Trai on the ground of confidentiality.