If Jio is permitted to sell 5G priority plans in coming days, then wouldn't that be unfair to Vi and Airtel?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kyle Crane
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Kyle Crane

Kyle Crane

Crane
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In late 2019 Vodafone (which was still working separately even after merger in 2018) tried to introduce premium postpaid plans which offered 50% higher speeds than regular "BEST EFFORT" users

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It was 999rs a month with unlimited data and priority network speeds over other users. And i found a old post on IBF where @RehanKumar posted speedtest of that plan which did show a significant speed boost for those users
broadband.forum

Vodafone RedX initial impressions/review

One more interesting observation Same location, same time First is RedX second is prepaid SIM
broadband.forum broadband.forum

but after a year this plan with priority speed was forcibly discontinued by TRAI by Sep 2020

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Now recently there is some news about Jio using 5G to offer premium plans which would offer 5G slicing which is most probably priority speeds over best effort users
isnt that unfair af? when Vodafone wanted to attract users but they were forced to discontinue but when Jio wants it. There is pretty much 0 backlash over it

does TRAI even do anything freely?
 
There's no point talking about rumors if they're not set in stone.
However, I'd encourage the use of network slicing and priorizing of users based on their plans.
 
Well if they offer premium plans with priority speeds im all up for it but question is why is Jio allowed such when it wasn’t for the competition.

More of a fairness issue
 
Back then Jio forced TRAI/DoT to stop Airtel/VI from offering prioritized services in the form of Platinum/RedX citing Net Neutrality issues. Now in 2026, Jio wants to modify Net Neutrality rules to allow operators to offer differential speeds using slicing and priority based on needs. Any changes to rules would apply to everyone and not limited to Jio.
 
Anyone remember when Excitel used to have different speeds for peering and transit? 20Mbps for peering and 5Mbps for non-peering? I think they ended it on net neutrality grounds. But I don't think it was completely unfair to users.

Transit traffic is legitimately more expensive for the ISP, and for the country international transit has foreign exchange costs (since traffic goes internationally, it has to be paid in foreign currency). Of course, there are issues with favoritism and oligopolies getting priority.

In case of LTE/5G prioritization I believe it can be valid iff speeds are being constrained due to lack of spectrum, cell density and not due to lack of investment in infrastructure to accommodate demand. Thing is it can be difficult to differentiate. Also, with wireless, you can't claim specific speeds like in case of wire, so it's not even very transparent. Wired broadband is much more scalable even with high density.
 
Today in telecom, tomorrow it will be in drinking water like only the one paying 100₹ per 100 litres would get treated water, others will get untreated one. Net neutrality in a country like India should be strictly enforced. ISP's already have FUP and other junk to combat this paying in dollars thing. Slicing would only make cellular worse when a 999₹ postpaid user will get amazing speeds while a 299₹ user will lie in dust. We already know how greedy indian telcos are, I hope government strictly bans this thing completely.
 
Slicing will obviously have effect on normal users but I don't understand when priority plan can be expensive then why can't basic plan be cheap without internet.
 
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