TRAI asks telecom operators to settle interconnection dispute

An ongoing dispute involving Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea over inter-connecting points was discussed in a meeting held with the telecom regulator authority of India (Trai). 

Trai has asked the incumbent telecos player to settle the inter-connection dispute with Reliance Jio. 

"Trai is meeting telecom operators tomorrow on the inter-connection issue," an official source said to PTI. 

During the launch of Reliance Jio on September 5, Mukesh Ambani revealed an ongoing battle with the other telecos player over interconnection. Ambani also accused these players stating that they were not fair in interconnection front during the time of their service trials.  

The incumbent have contended that RJio's testing of network was an effort to bypass regulations, a NDTV report. 

Further, the incumbent denied to give any extra points of interconnect to Jio stating that the traffic imbalance emerging through Jio's network was harming their networks. 

After the blame-game both the parties knocked the doors of telecom regulator along with department of telecom (DoT) explaining their side of the story. 

Considering the interconnection dispute is a regulatory issue, the DoT had refused to interfere in the matter and asked these telecos to approach telecom regulator. 

Incumbents say they do not possess the financial or network resources to handle the imbalance of traffic generated through Jio's network and hence are not 'obliged' to provide it additional capacity, a ET report.

It was said that the regulatory boards have been favouring Reliance Jio.  

Rajan S Mathews, DG, COAI,"With regards to the Inter-connect User Charge (IUC), we would like to categorically state that the views expressed by the Association on the matter are of “all the members” except Reliance Jio, which is the only member opposing it," added Mathews. 

It is also completely incorrect to say that “..the official or the CEO of the Association becomes an employee of the top two or three operators, in essence.”

Both Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are among the member of COAI. 

Mukesh Ambani on Economic Times said, Jio's customers had "suffered over five crore call failures to other networks because of insufficient interconnect capacity" in one week alone. 

"I think that the old telecom industry is used to using incumbent power, but I think these tactics don't work anymore. A Jio user will figure out that nothing is wrong with the service...the customer will soon start questioning if the incumbents are anti-consumer," he told TOI.