Telecom operator Vodafone India has decided to increase inter-connection capacity with Reliance Jio's network by three times but the new player said the number of ports promised to be released is substantially lower than what it actually needs.
"Following guidance from Trai and clarifications from Jio regarding its commercial launch, Vodafone India has decided to increase the points of inter-connect (POIs) between the two operators by thrice and accordingly, increase the capacity to connect," Vodafone India said in a statement.
Vodafone is the third incumbent operator, after Idea Cellular and Airtel, that has agreed to increase inter-connection points for Reliance Jio, after Telecom Regulatory Authority of India intervened in the matter.
RJIL, however, countered the claim and said, "The quantum of POIs (Point of Interconnection) proposed to be released by Vodafone as per its press release is substantially less than the requirement estimated based on transparent workings shared with Vodafone."
The Mukesh Ambani led firm said that it has been writing regularly to Vodafone regarding its requirement for interconnection capacity over the last few months highlighting the urgency of the requirement and the impact on quality of service parameters.
"The situation has deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks, with over 80 calls failing out of every 100 call attempts. In the last 10 days alone, over 15 crore RJIL calls have failed on the Vodafone network," RJIL said
It said that no action was taken by Vodafone in the last several weeks, resulting in non-compliance of Trai regulation on quality of service which mandates that POI congestion should not affect more than 1 call in every 200 calls made.
"Vodafone India has always provided points of inter-connect (PoIs) to other operators for all their fair, reasonable and legitimate requirements and will continue to do so," Vodafone said.
"Vodafone is hopeful that all issues it has raised with Trai and Jio will be duly considered and resolved at the earliest."
Inter-connection is required to enable mobile users to make calls to customers of other telecom networks. A mobile operator levies inter-connection usage charge for each incoming call it gets from a subscriber of another network.
Incumbent carriers have been demanding higher inter-connection charges compared with 14 paise they get for each incoming mobile call on their networks.
RJIL, which commercially launched its services on September 5, has accused the existing players of not releasing sufficient inter-connection ports which it feels is leading to call drops.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has indicated that it will take strong action against telecom operators found responsible for poor quality of service.
RJIL has alleged that over 22 crore calls have failed on the Airtel network while 52 crore have failed cumulatively on the networks of the three incumbent operators -- Airtel, Vodafone and Idea in about last 10 days.
Vodafone India's revenue during the reported period
declined by about 2 per cent to 3015 million euro from 3086 million euro. In local currency terms, Vodafone India revenue marginally increased by 3 per cent to Rs 22,654 crore in first six months ended September 30, 2016 from Rs 21,987.7 crore a year ago.
Vodafone India revenue declined at 1495 million euro in second quarter ended September 30, 2016 compared to 1505 million in corresponding period a year ago. However, revenue in local currency terms was up by about 2 per cent at Rs 11,170 crore from Rs 10,878 crore during period under review.
Average revenue per user of Vodafone India declined by 3.8 per cent to Rs 170.8 in quarter ended September 30, 2016 from Rs 177.7 in same period of previous fiscal. Vodafone India reported 200 million mobile customers at the end of reported period.
"Our active data customer base at the period end was 69.6 million. Overall, data pricing declined 14 per cent year-on-year, while data usage per customer continued to grow strongly to 504MB. Our 3G and 4G customer base continued to grow to 36 million," Vodafone said.
The company has made capital investments of Rs 3,356 crores in first half of current fiscal mainly in new site roll-out to deliver superior customer experience and growth in key focus areas.
Vodafone India mobile internet revenue grew by 18.8 per cent to Rs 4,617 crore at the end of reported first half compared to a year ago period.
The company paid around Rs 20,300 crore for buying spectrum in India to strengthen its market position and installed 4,100 new 3G sites taking the total tally to 63,000. The company has 13,000 mobile sites for 4G services.
"In India, following the Indian spectrum auction in October in which we increased our total spectrum holding by 62 per cent, we now have a strong position to support our future 4G needs. We plan to extend our 4G footprint from 9 to 17 circles by the end of the current financial year," Vodafone said.
