TRAI's New Website Will Let You Compare Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, and Other Recharges

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has launched a tariff comparison portal that will allow users to compare the recharges of Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, and other operators. The website has been launched as a beta portal and presently only covers data on the postpaid plans and prepaid recharges as well as landline plans available in Delhi-NCR circle. TRAI says the beta version of the website is “only for the purpose of getting feedback from the consumers to improve upon the user experience of this portal.” The information regarding the plans and packs listed on the website are provided by the operators, namely Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel, Tata Teleservices, and MTNL.

While the details of the plans will be provided by operators, TRAI will let users of the tariff comparison portal to give feedback as well. However, it nonetheless mentions subscribers should check with the operators’ customer care for the latest tariffs. The data of the recharges and plans on the website will be available in downloadable format.

To find the most suitable plans on the TRAI website, users need to choose between mobile and landline, prepaid and postpaid, circle (only Delhi presently), and operator. Other options they can choose include the technology (2G/ 3G/ 4G), pricing, total data and daily data caps, and unlimited calling. There’s also the option to choose ISD, international roaming, and national roaming packs. In the Advance Filters option, subscribers can filter the plans by local calls, STD calls, SMS, and roaming calls.

Once the relevant options are selected, you will be required to confirm the options again. You will be presented a number of plans that fit the chosen criteria, and users can choose any of the plans to compare. It is at this stage the data can be downloaded in XLS and XML format. When you hit Compare,  the plans will compared in a tabular format.

However, users will not be able to compare plans of different types using TRAI’s new website. For example, they will not be able to compare a Combo offer with a STV (Special Tariff Voucher), etc. This seems to be a major limitation as users do not always differentiate between a Combo, STV, SUK, Top-Up etc.