Just look at what’s happened recently. Both Jio and Airtel have quietly withdrawn their more affordable prepaid plans, in recent days. The ₹249 plans being the latest (a few value plans were culled before this, defining the summer’s big telecom theme), pushing the monthly prepaid recharge outlay higher for consumers. Coincidence? Hardly. When you have fewer competitors to contend with, there is a bit more leeway in terms of price control. When there isn’t, as is the case in India’s telecom landscape at this time, operators feel little discomfort in nudging consumers towards higher-price plans. Where will they go? The alternative also costs as much. This is Economics 101 playing out in real time, and consumers will have to pay more because there is little in terms of a viable alternative.

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Forget telecom for a moment. Duopoly or lack of competition can create a complex situation for consumers in any market. Brands and players need to be less aggressive on pricing, and in some ways, there is less pressure to be innovative with their offerings. Does that also mean less concerned about customer service? Perhaps.

This isn’t just a theoretical assumption. We’ve seen this movie before in other countries. When the U.S. mobile market was dominated by Verizon and AT&T, consumers paid significantly more for data and voice services compared to other countries where there was more competition. It’s only when players like T-Mobile started aggressively competing post their merger with Sprint in 2018, that we saw meaningful competition and service improvements. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised that America would get a fourth major wireless carrier during his presidency. He’s nuanced enough to understand what economists have known for decades — more players mean better outcomes for consumers, and for the country’s economy.

Whether that works out remains to be seen, considering EchoStar’s agreement for sale of $23 billion in spectrum to AT&T in previous weeks, may cause a bit more complication in the search for that fourth operator to compete with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.

There’s another aspect that doesn’t get talked about enough. Competition doesn’t just drive down prices, it speeds up pursuit for quality and innovation. When Jio launched with its disruptive pricing and 4G-first strategy many years ago, it forced every other player to up their game. Airtel had to improve its network quality and data offerings. Then Vodafone Idea too had to respond with better network coverage and tariffs. When there are only two major players, that incentive to innovate diminishes significantly. Why put pressure on margins, when there’s no need to?

Jio and Airtel have become more focused on extracting value from existing customers, a term known in the industry as ARPU, or average revenue per user. Telcos want this number to be as high as possible in this market. Airtel’s always had the better pie, with their last reported ARPU numbers hovering around ₹250 while Jio’s typical user base gets it to around ₹208.

The Vi relief dilemma adds more uncertainty around any potential government rescue package for the beleaguered telco, and will likely be the most telling indicator of where we’re headed. It is all speculation around potential discussions about providing financial relief, but the government has a lot more to consider before bailing out a poorly managed company even though it may now hold almost 49% stake, with a series of dues converted into equity. Till last year, I heard bullish public statements from the Vi management, about a turnaround. That confidence portrayal has largely evaporated in recent months.

Does the government give more weightage to preserving market structure that benefits hundreds of millions of consumers, or the cost to the exchequer. They won’t be wrong with either, to be fair to the government and the telecom regulators. Either way, they’ll simply need to be decisive.

It may be worth remembering that when India’s telecom space had competition which included Airtel, Hutch, Idea, Tata Docomo, Virgin, Reliance Communications, and Aircel to name a few, in the early 2010s. It was in 2016, when Jio arrived on the scene. That was the time when India climbed the charts, with the most affordable telecom tariffs globally.

“But isn’t consolidation efficient?” Only up to a point. Telecom is a scale game, sure, but it’s also a classic case of high fixed costs with network effects, the textbook conditions where concentrated markets can quietly drain consumers’ pockets over time. A third credible operator, with close to the scale and volume as the first two, adds exactly the kind of friction that keeps pricing honest.

Even if Vi fails and we end up with a Jio-Airtel duopoly, the immediate impact might not seem dramatic. Prices will not spike overnight (the entry point has increased from ₹249 to ₹299; and that trajectory will nibble away at discounts), and service quality might not plummet immediately. But the long-term trajectory would be unmistakably negative for consumers. Something we’ve seen with the elimination of some of the best value prepaid recharge plans, in recent weeks. We’ll see gradual price increases and tariff structures become less consumer-friendly, and minimal choice or flexibility.

The solution isn’t complex, but it requires acknowledging that sometimes market intervention is necessary to preserve market competition. Whether through adjusted spectrum payment terms, strategic debt restructuring, or other policy measures, keeping Vi viable isn’t also about corporate welfare — it’s also about the consumers. There is also precious little encouragement, at least what is seen or heard in the public domain, to encourage new telecom players. Whether local, or global players with a local partnership.

This isn’t an argument for propping up a weak operator forever. It’s a conversation about the cost of losing a third credible player — in a nation with more than a billion active mobile connections and digital rails woven into daily life. What stops us from finding the next Jio? After all, there is talk of planned 6G supremacy, and where will those investments come from?

Vishal Mathur is the Technology Editor at HT. Tech Tonic is a weekly column that looks at the impact of personal technology on the way we live, and vice versa. The views expressed are personal.