New entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm has accused existing operators of releasing lesser number of interconnection ports for the ongoing test run of its 4G services.
"Based on industry practice, 12,500 E1 ports are required for 22 million subscribers, which details have been provided to the COAI member operators. As against this, the top 3 operators have released only 1,400 ports so far," a Reliance Jio Spokesperson said today.
Jio has submitted to Trai that it will need 12,727 network interconnection for mobile services and 3068 points for STD call facility before commercial launch of its services.
"However, less than 4 per cent of the required ports in the first year have been released. As you can see, it is grossly incorrect to suggest that sufficient number of ports have been given to support 15 million users. This is reflected in the experience in the field where over 65 per cent of calls to networks of the top-3 operators are failing today," the spokesperson said.
The comments have come after GSM industry body COAI said that operators provided Jio sufficient capacity to support 10 times more customer base and congestion in its network may be due to free calls and data services.
Jio has approached the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to take action against incumbent telecom operators- Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular for denying adequate capacity which is leading to call failures in its network during trial run.
COAI said that its members, which include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, have given 400 interconnection ports on an average which can support 15-20 million customers using telecom services as per average subscribers on any other network.
During the test run, Reliance Jio is providing 90 days of unlimited calling and 4G data use on its network for free. It claims to have 1.5 million subscribers during this phase. The company has set a target of achieving 100 million subscribers within a year of commercial roll-out of service.
Reliance Jio spokesperson said over the last few months, Jio has asked for a time bound release of ports to meet expected traffic on the network so that the other operators are able to plan better.
The spokesperson countered the allegation of high use of its network.
"The voice usage pattern of Jio test users is in line with the industry at 355 minutes per month. As with any new operator, the mix of outgoing vs incoming calls will stabilise as the network grows. Jio estimation of ports factors this traffic imbalance in the initial period," the spokesperson said.
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