India, Nov. 5 -- Opening thoughts. A couple of weeks ago, Bharti Airtel became the first telecom company to follow through on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines that every telecom service provider must offer voice-only recharge packs for prepaid users. The troika is now complete, with Vi and Jio also announcing similar plans in recent days. In fact, all three operators also offer these in longer duration validity packs, a need for convenience that we had pointed out at the time.

Two key reasons necessitate the voice-only prepaid recharge plans. First, many consumers including senior citizens or those who keep a second SIM card as a backup, end up paying for data they may not necessarily need. This happens either ...