Jio asks watchdog to ensure it gets to connect with existing telcos

New Delhi: Reliance Industries has written another letter to the telecom watchdog requesting directives to the existing service providers (telcos) to immediately provide inter-connection to its Jio 4G network with their own, in the spirit of the licencing agreements.

It has also asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to take appropriate action against those companies that delay such a provisioning of points of interconnect to Jio, in a gross violation of the licensing agreements and applicable regulations.

Quoting from licencing accords, Reliance Jio said in its letter to TRAI Chairman R.S. Sharma that operators must extend requisite points of interconnect, of sufficient capacity and in sufficient numbers to ensure that calls are completed to all destinations.

The company said the current number of interconnect points being provided to Reliance Jio are far from adequate as the failure rate is in excess of 65 per cent, resulting in more than 1.6 crore call failures per day between Reliance Jio and the networks of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea.

"Without expediting the requisite points of interconnect augmentation, this situation will only get worse. Therefore, Reliance Jio's demand for additional points of interconnect is critical for its continued test trial and launch of commercial operations," it said.

"Such unequivocal denial to provide points of interconnect for interconnection to Reliance Jio is in blatant breach of the licence agreement. The licence agreement provides in very clear terms the obligation of the licencee to provide interconnection facilities to other licensees."

On August 12, chief executives of top mobile companies, under the umbrella of of the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), called on Communications Minister Manoj Sinha to express concerns over alleged favouritism towards new players in the sector.

The meeting came a day after a rather unprecedented move, wherein the association even wrote to the Prime Minister's Office complaining about the industry watchdog and contending that some of its moves discriminated against existing players.

A similar missive was also flagged to the Department of Telecom (DoT), which also specifically alleged that Reliance Jio has launched a full commercial service in the garb of test runs, while expressing concern over some consultation papers floated by the watchdog recently.

Reliance Jio had countered the claim, saying its tests are bona fide and were aimed at delivering high-quality service.