The Digital Users Group (DUG) has sought setting up of a floor price for telecom tariffs in order to improve the health of the sector and help it tide over the financial stress.
In its recent letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), DUG said that the current form of market forces is not conducive to telecom operators to recover costs from tariffs, and customers may get benefits in the short term but ultimately quality of service (QoS) and connectivity can only be ensured if the sector is sustainable. Thus, floor price is an important requisite for consumers, sector and the country, as revenue increase seem to be the only recourse left for the telcos to offer services with proper QoS parametres being followed.
Further, DUG emphasised on a fair price structure for all consumers, suggesting that those using premium network elements may be charged more accordingly to those subscribers who have low usage. To this end, DUG said that TRAI should look at a combination of fixed fee and usage charge for floor price.
According to DUG, setting up a floor price will also help the telcos to recover and improve the investment climate for growth.
