After outcry, Airtel puts off plan to charge VoIP
It had announced Rs 75 recharge card for the pre-paid customers
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-12-30 06:07 GMT
New Delhi: Buckling under criticism from customers, India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday suspended its decision to charge separately for calls made over internet.
The u-turn comes just three days after it had defended the decision to charge voice calls over internet (VoIP) saying that such services in their current form are not tenable for “us as a business.”
Bharti Airtel was the first telecom operator to announce its intent to charge voice calls over internet. VoIP services among others include Skype, Line and Viber which allows users to make free calls through the internet.
After this, the company had come under attack in the online space and this decision had raised the issue of net neutrality in the country. Net neutrality means that all internet traffic should be treated equally. Even telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the telecom department will look at Airtel’s decision to charge VoIP calls.
“In view of the news reports that a consultation paper will be issued shortly by the Telecom Regula-tory Authority of India (Trai) on issues relating to services offered by over-the-top (OTT) players including VoIP, we have decided not to implement our proposed launch of VoIP packs,” said Bharti Airtel on Monday.
Airtel said that it has no doubt that as a result of the consultation process, a balanced outcome would emerge “that would not only protect the interests of all stakeholders and viability of this important sector but would also encourage much needed investments in spectrum and roll out of data networks to fulfil the objective of digital India.”
The recent popularity of over-the-top services such Whatsapp and Skype, which allows smartphone users to send texts and make calls freely, has not gone down well with telecom operators who see them as exploiting telecom operators infrastructure to make money.
This when competition and high spectrum fees has hit the bottom line of the telecom operators. With the increase in smartphone penetration, the use of such apps is likely to rise.
Airtel on Friday had announced a Rs 75 recharge card for the pre-paid customers for VoIP services which would have given them 75MB of data and will be valid of 28 days. This would have allowed customers to make between 200 and 250 minutes of calling, said the company.