Reliance Jio to telcos: Have fulfilled all licence requirements; give connectivity

Days before its commercial launch, Reliance Jio on Friday said it has fulfilled all licence conditions for commencement of services and incumbent players should meet their obligations to provide adequate interconnection and mobile number portability (MNP) facility.

Reliance Jio said it has intimated the Telecom Department, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and security agencies regarding the commencement of its wireless telecommunication services in all 22 service areas from September 5, 2016.

"The company has also filed the tariff plans for wireless services with Trai. With these steps, the company has fulfilled all the requirements of Unified Licence for commencement of services," an RJio release said.

"Currently, Jio test users are facing huge interconnect and MNP issues. Incumbent operators have maintained that once Jio intimates Depart of Telecom (DOT) and Trai of its commencement of services in accordance with the licence conditions, they would provide adequate inter-connection facility to Jio as per Jio's requirements and mobile number portability (MNP) facility," the statement added.

RJio further said it expects and hopes that following the commencement of its services, the incumbent operators would fulfil their obligations to provide adequate interconnection and MNP facility.

The company - which on Thursday shook the market with its aggressive offerings including free voice calls and cheap data plans - has also threatened to report the operator-wise call failure numbers on its website www.Jio.com, on a regular basis "in the spirit of putting the customer-first and complete transparency".

"Jio looks forward to cooperation and working together with the industry to achieve the vision of Digital India. We appreciate the announcements made by the incumbent operators welcoming us to the industry and assuring that they will fulfill all their regulatory obligations," it said.

Reliance Jio, the telecom venture of Reliance Industries said that it expect the incumbent operators to fulfil their regulatory obligations in "letter and spirit".

Countering cellular operators association's charges that the company was bundling its voice with data, Reliance Jio said that the "data used for the voice calls will also neither be charged nor deducted from the data balance of the subscriber."

On Thursday, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani had said that Reliance Jio (RJio) customers had suffered 5 crore call failures last week due to interconnectivity issues with existing networks.

When contacted, cellular operators association of India (COAI) director general Rajan S Mathews said that that "incumbent operators will review the statement and respond accordingly".