Amid escalation of war of words between Bharti Airtel and newcomer Reliance Jio over call connectivity, telecom regulator TRAI today emphasised that points of interconnect is a "consumer" issue which it will continue to monitor.
"We have been deliberating on this issue...It is not an issue of (operator) A versus B. It is an issue of consumers," TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said on the sidelines of IAMAI Digital Summit here.
Noting that TRAI had intervened into the issue, Sharma said the regulator will continue to look at the situation.
Yesterday, Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio termed as "malicious and misleading", rival Airtel's claim that it has provided sufficient interconnect capacity to Jio and that latter has been unable to activate all the points of interconnect (PoIs) and utilise the said capacity.
"This latest statement is a continuation of Airtel's ongoing mischievous and motivated campaign to divert attention from its anti-competitive and anti-consumer actions and violations of license conditions which are being investigated by the authorities," Jio said on Tuesday.
Over 53 per cent of the national long distance (NLD) calls are failing due to "inadequate" PoIs from Airtel, Jio has alleged.
"Inspite of intervention by authorities and censure proceedings against Airtel, NLD call failure rate was at 53.4 per cent as against TRAI norm of 0.5 per cent. There has always been a lag in PoIs required and PoIs provided by Airtel resulting in severe service issues for Indian customers," Jio had said.
Its comments came as a response to a statement by Airtel that it has provided adequate capacity to Jio to serve over 190 million customers.
Bharti Airtel said, "The PoIs have been provided well above the customer growth projection provided by Jio to Airtel. The capacity provided is ideal for serving over 190 million customers on the Jio network and is more than double of the 72.5 million total customers currently claimed by Jio."
Jio has been unable to activate all the points of interconnect (PoIs) and utilise the capacity provided, Airtel had alleged.
(Reopens DCM50)
On the telecom tribunal TDSAT recently seeking certain clarifications from TRAI over Jio's free offer, Sharma said, "It is a judicial process, and every entity in this country has the right to it (the process)."
Incumbent operators Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have approached the telecom tribunal against TRAI for allowing Reliance Jio to continue free promotional offer beyond the stipulated 90 days.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 11th India Digital Summit, Sharma noted that each month, hundreds of plans are filed with TRAI.
"As you know, the tariffs are under forbearance. In this particular plan (by Jio), the other incumbent operators had objected, so we have decided the issue between the entity that filed the plan and the entity who had objected to it. That decision is taken, and that decision has been appealed against. We do not have to represent ourselves. We will just file the records," he said.
TRAI, as a regulator, has decided on the dispute between the two parties.
"Our decision has been appealed against. We don't have to go and justify our decision, the records will speak," he said.
Sources said, TRAI had taken its decision after a careful examination of the matter and after taking into account the opinion of the Attorney General which held that Jio's tariff plans do not violate any existing regulation or order issued by the regulator.
Given the 6-8 per cent marketshare of Jio in terms of subscriber base, it could not be termed as dominant or predatory either, they pointed out.
