A large Asian telecom operator began to charge for VoIP calls

The transnational telecommunications giant Bharti Airtel Limited (better known simply as Airtel), whose headquarters is located in New Delhi (India) has changed the rules for providing services: now, regardless of whether the client has prepaid packages for providing Internet, VoIP calls will be charged on top them taking into account the traffic consumption.

It's no secret that the cost of data services from mobile operators is not cheap, and therefore many of them, in order to attract owners of modern gadgets, develop tariff plans in which the use of the Internet is included for some fixed fee - while the price for the user is usually , significantly lower than if he included the data service directly. This allows, on the one hand, to attract a loyal audience (a modern smartphone without the Internet turns into a reader and a dialer at best), and on the other hand, the user gets the opportunity to use all the benefits of a permanent connection for much less money.

However, the presence of such programs as Skype or Viber, which allow voice calls via the Internet, causes discontent among mobile operators, since the volume of VoIP traffic often does not correspond to the calculated consumption volumes included in the monthly fee, which were probably designed for regular browsing. . This caused litigation and accusations of both parties, the most unpleasant of which is the threat of restricting VoIP traffic, which, in essence, means violation of the principle of net neutrality.

AirTel is a major telecommunications giant providing services to approximately 190 million people in Asia (2G, 3G and 4G networks in more than 20 countries, including Africa). From the new year, subscribers of the operator, who have prepaid tariff plans with cheap Internet, will be able to use them only for regular browsing. All incoming and outgoing VoIP traffic will be charged as a separate service. Thus, there is a real precedent in the large Asian market, in which one type of traffic is preferred over the other.
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