Vi and Airtel oppose Jio’s recommendation to shutdown 2G and 3G

Vodafone Idea has asked for the government to create a subsidy scheme to encourage migration of feature phones to smartphones through the respective operators, and disregard demands for shutting down 2G networks that serve poor consumers.

The subsidy can be funded through the Universal Services Obligation Fund or the Digital Bharat Nidhi, Vodafone Idea said in its comments to TRAI consultation paper titled ‘Digital Transformation through 5G Ecosystem’ .

“We urge the TRAI to disregard such rhetoric comments of sunset date for legacy technologies and not recommend any regulatory mandate, which otherwise would cause huge inconvenience to the public at large,” was Vi’s response to RJio’s recommendation,“The Government should come out with a policy and glidepath for closing down the 2G and 3G networks completely so that unnecessary network costs should be avoided, and all customers can be migrated to 4G and 5G services. This will also give great impetus to developing ecosystem to 5G use cases.”

“A substantial part of the citizens in the country are generally using older technology i.e. 2G and are not able to access the new generation technology i.e. 4G and 5G despite availability of connectivity. The inability of users to switch to smartphones on account of the cost of these devices, also leads to the users continuing on older technology and hence, not using digital services and most likely ending up being not updated on latest digital technologies and services. Such barriers further increases digital divide as well as would also impact ecosystem for 5G use cases and thus need a concerted effort and push from the Government to get resolved.” elaborated Vi.

Gopal Vittal, managing director and CEO at Airtel India agrees. “On sunsetting 2G networks: there has been a gradual move away from 2G and in the next few years, you should start seeing a substantial, almost disappearing of 2G. At that stage, we can decide what we do. At this point in time, the amount of spectrum we use for 2G is very limited,” said Vittal at the Q3FY24 earnings call a couple of days back.

“There is no doubt that the 5G services, its ecosystem and use cases will play most crucial role in driving digital transformation across various industries by providing faster and more reliable connectivity. 5G with its faster data speeds, increased bandwidth, and lower latency, will provide businesses and innovators with the connectivity and capabilities that can give wings to their dreams. In this context, it is important to delve upon the need to identify any requirement of policy changes or new policy framework that will foster better and faster adoption and effective utilisation of new technologies for the holistic and sustainable development of the economy driven by 5G ecosystem,” was Jio’s detailed response to TRAI’s consultation paper.

Both Airtel and Vodafone Idea continue to have a large subscriber base on the 2G network. Jio does not have a 2G network, and has launched affordable 4G feature phones and smartphones to drive upgradation of basic feature phone users to 4G devices.

CT Bureau