 "Telco wars: Govt to work without bias, says Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha")
Director General of COAI Rajan Mathews said: “The government is keen to help resolve the matter and we believe the meeting went off well.”
Mathews said that at the meeting, the cellular operators sought clarification on ‘grey areas’. “We asked them to help clarify the grey areas of testing (RJio's trial connections comprises 1.5 million users), how long the testing can last, etc.”
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Last Monday, the telecom lobby group had sent a letter to the telecom secretary complaining about the Telecom Regulatory Authority India (Trai)’s decisions and RelianceJio doing a full-blown launch in the garb of a trial. COAI accused Trai of being biased and adopting ‘unfair’ policies to favour new entrants including Reliance Jio. It also sought the intervention of the Prime Minister's Office on the issue.
The minister conveyed his displeasure that the industry chose to air their concerns through the media instead of trying to resolve the matter amicably with the regulator and government. Rajan said while they conceded it would have been the best thing to do, the industry had just come out of a bruising battle on call drops and the regulator had opened up another issue for them.
The industry hopes that the government will have a view on Trai's decision to review interconnect charges as the government's revenues will also be impacted. Despite the industry's concerns, the minister and secretary were of the view that the industry should participate in the consultation process.
The industry also sought clarity from the telecom minister on Jio's protracted launch and how it was impacting the rest of the players, as they could not give further interconnect capacity till the company commercially launched services.
Later, Sinha said: “A COAI delegation came to meet me and they have expressed some concerns. I told them that the government does not work with bias. Our work is not to stop anyone or allow anyone.” He added for the government, consumers come first.
Mathews said the Department of Telecom has assured existing operators that it will have a "conversation" with the telecom regulator "to clarify matters such as the requirements of testing, the duration of tests, and the protocol to be followed" and will try to resolve it.
Asked if operators would be willing to have a dialogue with the regulator on the outstanding issues, he said, "Yes... We will continue to respond to the discussion papers, to have a dialogue with Trai, and to engage with them."
On whether the association would still seek time from PMO - following up on their letter to Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Nripendra Misra, on Thursday highlighting the incumbent operators' concerns - Mathews replied in affirmative.
"We would like to meet the PMO and explain the context. We have requested for time and are yet to hear from them," he added.
The development comes at a time when allegations are flowing thick and fast between cellular operators and RJio, with COAI terming the latter's testing of network as bypass of regulations, and the Mukesh Ambani firm returning fire saying the charge is a bid to block its full rollout.
Association members who met the telecom minister include COAI Chairman Gopal Vittal (MD and CEO - India & South Asia, Bharti Airtel); Vice-Chairman Sunil Sood (MD & CEO, Vodafone India); and Himanshu Kapania, MD of Idea Cellular.