NEW DELHI: With Telecom Regulator Authority of India (Trai) taking a stern view of ongoing spat between incumbents and new entrant Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Tuesday said all issues will be resolved within a few weeks.
“It (points of interconnect) was non-existent (issue). Suddenly this has become unnecessarily a big issue. I have told my team and sent messages to Mukesh (Ambani) and his team. Let’s ignore and resolve this. I am not saying look out for 6 months or a year. Look out for few weeks and this will get settled,” Mittal told ET Now in his first comments on RelJio.
The sticky point between RelJio and incumbent operators such as Airtel has been providing points of interconnect (PoI), which help calls between different networks to go through.
Jio has accused Airtel and others of creating entry barriers by not providing enough PoI, leading to a large number of call drops on its network.
The telecom regulator on Monday said it will take action against telecom operators if found guilty for compromising on quality of service.
Mittal said Jio is being provided sufficient network interconnection points since the time it started commercial service. “You have to keep in mind September 5 was their commercial launch. 2,000 PoI have been provided and more are being provided. You can’t judge this industry in 10 days. The problem is in the media and in the letter exchanged and all that. There needs to be a dialogue. People need to sit together ” Mittal said.
{{/usCountry}}Mittal said Jio is being provided sufficient network interconnection points since the time it started commercial service. “You have to keep in mind September 5 was their commercial launch. 2,000 PoI have been provided and more are being provided. You can’t judge this industry in 10 days. The problem is in the media and in the letter exchanged and all that. There needs to be a dialogue. People need to sit together ” Mittal said.
{{/usCountry}}Incumbents have alleged that free calls being offered by Jio is leading to huge incoming traffic on their network due to which they have to incur huge cost and services to their customers are adversely impacted.
Mittal said that no one must have anticipated impact of their launch. “We have to manage our own networks. We have to ensure that quality of service of my customers is not going down,” he said.