No floor price for voice, data in most developed countries: Morgan Stanley

Trai chairman R S Sharma said the regulator was open to consultation on the issue

Even though a few mobile operators in India have sought fixing of a floor price for voice and data services, it is not a norm in most developed markets and only a few countries like Morocco have a floor price on bundled services.

As per a report by Morgan Stanley, most of the developed markets globally do not have any such floor price for both data and voice.

Last week, some of the incumbent operators had asked sectoral regulator Trai to fix a floor or minimum price for voice and data services. The operators had suggested the imposition of floor rate for tariffs to check predatory pricing. The incumbents have alleged that latest entrant Reliance Jio had adopted a predatory pricing approach to winning the market share.

However, as per Morgan Stanley, globally only a few countries like Morocco have a floor price for bundled services. In Nigeria, there was a directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission to implement a floor price on data from December 1, 2016 as a means to promote level playing field in the industry and encourage small operators.

"However, this was suspended prior to implementation," the report said.

The entry of Jio has stepped up competition in the sector, which is facing debt to the tune of Rs 4.5 lakh crore and is also witnessing profit erosion due to low-priced tariffs offered by the newcomer. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman RS Sharma has said the regulator was open to consultation on the issue.