Vodafone Idea has informed the telecom regulator TRAI that its premium tariff plan under which some subscribers are being given higher speeds has no impact on the quality of service being given to its other subscribers.

In a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Vodafone Idea said that usage on its premium plan called REDX and the number of such subscribers is only a small fraction and therefore this has no impact on overall network throughput.

The TRAI had recently asked Vodafone Idea to explain the premium tariff plan which the operator had launched last year. The regulator had initially asked the operator to stop taking new subscribers under the premium plan.

But the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal stayed the regulator’s order even as it allowed TRAI to continue with its investigation. The key aspect of this investigation is whether the promise of higher speed to premium customers is impacting the quality of service being provided to other users.

Spectrum is a shared resource hence it is widely accepted that high usage by a specific group of consumers in an area could impact other subscribers in the same location. However, Vodafone Idea has told the TRAI that it has been able to manage its network in a way that the premium service did not impact other subscribers on its network.

“There is an ongoing substantial addition of capacities, optimization and network integration of Vodafone and Idea Networks resulting in more efficient use of spectrum. This all translates into better services despite unprecedented traffic growth. 

“As mentioned earlier, various factors which are beyond the control of operator can determine actual delivery of speed to the customers. The same has been duly informed to customers. These factors are the nature of handset, location of access server locations, server performance, topography etc,” Vodafone Idea said in its submission to TRAI.

At the customer level, the average speeds experienced by REDX customer is at least 1.5 times that of Non-REDX customer.

“REDX subscribers have better experience in terms of speed as offered. No impact on non REDX due to REDX priority feature, their speeds have overall increased, with no perceptible difference between overall network download speeds and non-REDX download speeds,” the operator said.