Restrain Reliance Infocomm, Say Cell Companies

[Arun 795]

March 30, 2005 - Rediff.com

Cellular operators have sought intervention by TRAI to restrain Reliance Infocomm from offering predatory tariffs in its new unlimited talktime plans claiming this was non-compliance of the regulator's order.

Plan 700 of RIC offers unlimited talk time to Reliance phones across India and Plan 435 offers unlimited talk time to Reliance phones across Chennai- Tamil Nadu, Kolkata-West Bengal and Mumbai- Maharashtra circles, Cellular Operators Association of India said in a letter to TRAI.

Reliance's tariff plans, by offering unlimited talktime to its own customers across different service areas, are in violation of the authority' s tariff order as notified in its 33rd amendment.

"These tariffs are predatory as the same tariff and rates are not transparently available to the other access providers who are its competitors," the letter said.

"We believe that by offering such tariffs, Reliance is squeezing the margins of its competitors as it has lowered its retail tariffs of competitive services in the downstream market while not extending this facility to its competitors for wholesale prices (carriage charges) in the upstream market", the letter added.

The association has sought intervention of the authority to direct the immediate withdrawal of the above plans.

The 33rd amendment to the telecommunication tariff order dated December 8, 2004 clearly states that any differential tariff assuming the nature of vertical price squeeze will not be permitted and service providers shall conduct a self-check of existing tariffs in view of the above guidelines.

[StaticElectricity 8]

man, thats bad, how are people supposed to get better (cheaper) rates without competiting companies, who will, definitely rival each other??!!

[SexyGurl 0]

Ab fati hai .. itni der se

I knew it way back in Dec. when Reliance lauched the 700 scheme, that it would beat the sh*t out of these folks.

(Though, there wasn't any ingenuity needed to understand that) >> even TRAI understood it ... hence the damage control exercise of the drastic cut in ADC on national long distance.

But, Reliance has a killer advantage with it's 80,000 km optic fiber backbone.

BSNL is hopelessly placed to compete on STD becoz that's it bread, butter and oxygen.

The only other player airtel is rather weak with only 30,000 kms. of optic fiber cable .... and probably it isn't terabit capable at the one Reliance has.

The other thing (i.e. apart from the 80,000 km OFC), Reliance has vast "loot" potential in R-world ... No-one can as yet beat it ... BSNL, Hutch, Airtel etc. ... GSM video capable sets (i.e. Edge sets) just don't exist in bulk in the market .... while Reliance streams videos on 3000 rupee LG 2030 sets !!!! something available with every tom, **** and harry .. .(so, the D***s of airtel, hutch have no chance in high-end data services )

[Basant 0]

Cheers Reliance......................!

Free competition must go on....if they rivals can not match, let them perish.............survival of the best n fittest.

[Dushie 30]

Cheers Reliance......................!

Free competition must go on....if they rivals can not match, let them perish.............survival of the best n fittest.

29116[/snapback]

I agree reliance offers competetive rates and great offers , other subscribers, are making money by charging so mcuh for std services,

reliance has to show them the way,

and all consumers are benfited by these tarif plans and offers.

[tanveer 59]

Call For 30 paise to Any Mobile

n the wake of COAI complaining to TRAI about Reliance's anti-competitive practice, all GSM operators have decided to counter the cheap rates that Reliance is offering.

This is the first time operators have ganged up against a member of their fraternity.

Starting from today, all calls made between 10p.m. and 6 a.m. will be charged at 30 paise per minute. But as all good things, this too will come at a rate and a catch. Rs 50 will be deducted from users' balance when one opts for this scheme and the catch is that this scheme has to be applied for by 12 o'clock midnight tonight.

COAI had complained to TRAI that Reliance was indulging in vertical price squeeze, which is an anti-competitive practice by an operator with significant market power. Reliance's 'unlimited' talk time offered to its own customers is deemed as predatory by the other service providers because the same tariff and rates is not transparently available to them.

Till the TRAI takes action against Reliance, GSM operators have decided to open this offer to their customers.

[Arun 795]

Call For 30 paise to Any Mobile

n the wake of COAI complaining to TRAI about Reliance's anti-competitive practice, all GSM operators have decided to counter the cheap rates that Reliance is offering.

This is the first time operators have ganged up against a member of their fraternity.

Starting from today, all calls made between 10p.m. and 6 a.m. will be charged at 30 paise per minute...

29204[/snapback]

That was just another April Fool prank from Techtree.com that you copy pasted. Please think twice before you copy paste such information from other websites.

[shuva_nandi 0]

In my opinion, TRAI should not intervene in this case. Let the market decide which company will prevail and that will ultimately benefit the consumers. But you never know with the limits of stupidity that TRAI has shown before.

In any case it showed how ill-equipped the GSM operators are in India to challenge the technological leadership of RIM. I feel proud to be a RIM subscriber and lets hope that UNLIMTED STD prevails.

Shuvabrata

[Chirag 5]

Remember, its not jus that what a Operator can provide. At the end of the day, it has to stay profitable to sustain on a long-term basis rather than jus providing FREE stuff, eating away into other's revenues and having a negative growth.

Apparently such things make the situation so sad that neither the operator earns, nor does it let others earn!! Thts wht u see with RIM!

[SexyGurl 0]

I don't think reliance is offering any "subsidy" to make the unlimited STD offers lucrative !

The huge capacity they have built in optic fiber network, is lying all empty ... 700 Rs. is a very good money for them to make, since they do not incur any variable costs on offering that. The optic fiber network is now a sunk cost ... and thus irrelevant to to computing "contribution" (the term used in marketing / finance).

In addition, in many cases, the subscriber who busy 700 plan ... may need the counterparty at the other end to buy-in a reliance ... could mean additional revenue of Rs. 200/- p.m.

Their problem::: They are probably not finding high enough subscribers to subscribe to their 700 plan too !!!! .... which would enable their optic fiber network to be filled with traffic to higher utilization levels.

Many people are fine paying just Rs. 200/- per month ... and fine making just one or two STD calls to their native place at Rs. 1.79 ... making a mockery of an network built at a cost of about Rs. 7-8 thousand crores.

Their game still lies in building up subscriber volumes .... those vital cell sites, which take the huge optic fiber capacity to (potential) subscribers in yet uncovered areas.

[harsh 1]

rim is set to eliminate the concept of STD. all india will be one local circle for all rim nos.

once their wired lanlines start, they will be giving such schemes more and more cheaper to attract more subscribers. so ultimately all rim nos. will be at local cost all over india. that is what they are already doing but the scale is still smaller.

[shuva_nandi 0]

I don't think reliance is offering any "subsidy" to make the unlimited STD offers lucrative !

Their game still lies in building up subscriber volumes .... those vital cell sites, which take the huge optic fiber capacity to (potential) subscribers in yet uncovered areas.

29335[/snapback]

I totally agree with you. Thats what i meant and TRAI need not intervene in this case. If the GSM operators could manage to offer FREE STD, let them do it in the best intention for the customer. The fact remains that GSM, although hugely successful in Europe, is able to handle far less number of user per cell site compared to CDMA. Even in Europe when they are switching to 3G, they rely on WCDMA or UMTS, which both uses an extended version of CDMA 2000 that Reliance is using.

So let Airtel come up with a terrabit OFC network to compete with RIM. That will eventually meet the Govt's goal to increase indian teledensity to reach the desired level

Shuvabrata