new delhi the telecom industry is embroiled in another tussle with predatory pricing taking centre stage againvodafone idea vi has complained to the telecom regulatory authority of india trai that reliance jio and bharti airtel are indulging in predatory pricing with their respective unlimited 5g offerswhile calling on trai to act against its larger rivals the struggling telco has said that the two being significant market players smp cannot offer 5g for free and that too for an unlimited time thereby accelerating the subscriber churn at cashstrapped vi officials aware of the details told ettrai sought responses from jio and airtel both of whom have rejected vis allegations in separate responses they have said that they cant be called out for offering predatory tariffs as 5g currently has a very small user base with the network rollout currently under progress officials saidfurther the two argued that they are not offering anything for free as 5g is being given as part of 4g packs and are charged accordingly in fact the cost of providing 1gb of 5g data is much less than that of 4gwe had given a notice to them jio and airtel they have given replies and we will make a decision soon currently the legal team finance team and technical team of trai are studying the matter one of the officials said asking not to be nameda second official said that following vis allegations the regulator had asked jio and airtel two specific questions on predatory pricing and seeking details around their unlimited 5g offers the officials added that a decision needs to be taken after a thorough examination of the delicate matter keeping in mind that it shouldnt affect the uptake of 5g services in the countryusage not very highthe three operators didnt respond to ets queries as of press timeback in 2016 soon after jios launch of commercial services airtel and vodafone idea had accused the new entrant of predatory pricing the antitrust body had rejected the allegations since then jio has grown to become the largest carrier by subscriber and revenue market share followed by bharti airtel with both gaining more and more ground at the expense of cashstrapped vodafone ideaboth jio and airtel have been expanding their 5g network since october last year burdened by financial stress vi has not announced any timelines for its 5g launch experts caution that vi stands to lose more and more share to rivals if it doesnt launch 5g services soona telco can be identified as an smp if it has over 30 share by number of subscribers revenue market share volume of traffic and network capacity in a given circle while both jio and airtel have more than 30 in most of the circles vodafone idea has similar shares in 45 circles including mumbai kolkata kerala and maharashtra vi too is offering unlimited packages in circles where it is an smp at low tariffs said the officialalso a tariff can be considered as predatory if a