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Telcos agree to talk with Reliance Jio on network errors
Telecom operators struck a conciliatory note in their battle with Reliance Jio Infocomm on Friday, agreeing to consider the Mukesh Ambani-led company’s demand for additional points of interconnection.
Telecom operators struck a conciliatory note in their battle with Reliance Jio Infocomm on Friday, agreeing to consider the Mukesh Ambani-led company’s demand for additional points of interconnection.
The Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) had met operators RelJio, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea to discuss network interconnection. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Reliance Jio are currently locked in a row over interconnection points, which enable two operators to connect their networks.
Points of interconnection enable two operators to connect to each other’s networks.
“Incumbent operators have advantages over new entrants since they have well-established networks and customers. New entrants require fair access to both. Therefore, the onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles,” RelJio chairman Mukesh Ambani had said last week.
In one week, Jio customers faced 50 million call failures in connecting with customers on competing networks, when the network was still in its test phase, Ambani had said.
“This is a fight for justice, a fight for all Indian customers,” Jio board member Mahendra Nahata told Press Trust of India. “We have asked for the right number of connections, the right quantum of interconnections. We have put forth our point of view. It is for TRAI to look into the matter. There is no timeframe indicated by TRAI.”
On Friday, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the body representing telecom operators, including RelJio, had said existing telcos will consider providing “reasonable incremental capacity” to Jio. If they arrive at an agreement, it will take at least 90 days to fulfil Jio’s demand for more interconnection points.
Telcos had said that the scale of Jio’s testing phase matched a full-fledged network launch.
“It is definitely progress... this is certainly breaking of the initial deadlock... expectations have been set and we hope this will set the basis of a resolution,” Mathews said on Friday about the agreement among operators to consider Jio’s request.
Interestingly, Bharti Airtel raked up another contentious issue — of interconnection usage charge (IUC)— in a statement released shortly after COAI’s press conference. It urged authorities to curb the “asymmetric” traffic Jio is generating as a result of free services. “We urge TRAI to find a way to curb the massive asymmetric traffic to ensure that receiving networks are not abused by a tsunami of free traffic. IUC is an effective tool in the hands of TRAI, which we hope they will use judiciously.”
COAI has been arguing that the POIs provided by incumbents to Jio are sufficient to support 15-20 million customers, and Jio has only 2-3 million right now.
