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Jio Vs the rest: Telcos to meet regulator over RelJio interconnection
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has called a meeting with operators to resolve the ongoing dispute involving Reliance Jio and incumbents such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea over interconnection points.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has called a meeting with operators to resolve the ongoing dispute involving Reliance Jio and incumbents such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea over interconnection points.
“Trai is meeting telecom operators tomorrow on the interconnection issue,” an official source said on Thursday.
Industry body Cellular Operators Association of India, which includes RelJio also along with other major telcos, has written to the Prime Minister’s Office stating that incumbents are “not obliged to entertain interconnect requests” that are “anti-competitive”.
It has sought PMO’s intervention on the issue to “restore fair competition”.
The COAI submitted that incumbent operators are in no position by way of network or financial resources to terminate volumes of traffic that are “markedly asymmetric”.
“Neither are they obliged to entertain interconnect requests which are derived from abnormally induced traffic patterns that game the interconnection-usage charge (IUC) regime and are anti-competitive,” COAI said in its letter addressed to principle secretary Nripendra Misra.
Reliance Jio, which commercially launched its services on September 5, has accused incumbent players like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone of not releasing sufficient interconnection ports.
COAI director-general Rajan S Mathews said that before giving interconnection to Reliance Jio, the operators need clarity on whether the services of the new entrant are now “commercial” and if it is so, the company cannot offer free service for more than 90 days. “We have six members and five of them are on board on interconnect and other issues,” Mathews said.
