Reliance Jio, Airtel continue to spar over interconnect ports

Jio alleged that Airtel was abusing its market dominance and was indulging in 'anti-competitive behaviour'

Continuing their war of words, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio today accused Bharti Airtel of providing less than one-fourth of the necessary interconnect points to complete calls between the two networks, a charge vehemently denied by the Sunil Mittal-led firm.

Reliance Jio, the newest player in telecom arena, alleged that Airtel was abusing its market dominance and was indulging in "anti-competitive behaviour", as it put the blame for over two crore call failures everyday squarely on the older rival.

"It is apparent that Airtel continues to abuse its market dominance by imposing onerous conditions which will imminently hinder RJIL's ability to efficiently utilise the additional E1s," it said in a statement.

"It appears that the QoS (Quality of Service) will continue to suffer and Indian customers will be denied the benefits of superior and free voice services as a result of such anti-competitive behaviour," it added.

The comments come a day after Airtel said it will work towards releasing the points of interconnect or PoIs "well ahead" of the contractual obligation.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) said the PoIs provided to enable its users to complete calls on existing operators' network were "substantially less".

It said two crore calls fail daily as the largest telecom operator dilly dallies on adequate PoIs.

"Based on the current traffic flow between the two networks, the proposed augmentation by Airtel would still only suffice for less than one-fourth of the required interconnection capacity," it said.

Responding to the charge, Bharti Airtel categorically denied what it called was "the rhetorical statements made by Reliance Jio with regard to the release of additional PoIs from Airtel to Jio and mobile number portability (MNP) requests."

"Following the bilateral discussions on September 13, 2016, Airtel agreed to release the additional PoIs to Jio on the same day itself and raised the demand notes on September 14, 2016.

"With the latest augmentation, the total number of PoIs provided will become three times the present number of PoIs. This capacity will be sufficient to serve over 15 million customers, which is much more than their present subscriber base and their demand for 10 million projected customers," Airtel said.