Reliance Jio has fired another shot in the telecom operators’ war by accusing Airtel of alloting lesser interconnection points than required by the former. The new network is facing an issue of severe call drops for which it needs a certain number of Points of Interconnection (PoI) from other companies in the sector.
Before the soft launch of its network, Reliance Jio had complained to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that its competitors are posing problems in its inauguration by not allocating the required PoI. In a meeting between the governing body and the telecom companies, it was decided that that the existing players would assign the necessary infrastructure for the new entrant on the block.
Idea was the first operator to give an additional share of interconnection points to Jio. Airtel had also allotted a certain number of PoI to the Mukesh Ambani-led company which the latter claims to be insufficient. The new network is facing almost two crore call drops every day and needs adequate points to service its nearly 15 million customers.
In a statement to PTI, Reliance has said that Airtel is using its market dominance to indulge in anti-competitive behavior with Jio. It is solely resting the blame for the call drops on the Sunil Mittal-led network and claims that the points allotted by the latter are only one-fourth of the number required for operations.
Reliance also said that customers continue to suffer under poor connectivity on its 4G network owing to Airtel’s anti-competitive behavior in the market. If consumers repeatedly get inferior service from Jio, TRAI may have to interfere in the ongoing war again as it had warned the telecom operators previously about subscribers being affected in the ongoing price war.
Airtel has denied the charges put forth by Jio. It said that it has provided the necessary PoI well in advance than the 90-day period given by TRAI. The company claims that Jio is deliberately creating problems in the interconnecting points’ issue, and using it as a cover-up to hide its own technical faults.