Incumbent Telecom Operators Not Cooperating On Interconnection, Reliance Jio Says
Reliance Jio makes fresh accusations against incumbents.
Despite repeated reminders and bilateral meetings, no new interconnection capacity has been made operational by the three incumbent telecom operators in the last 15 days, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. said in a fresh statement issued on Tuesday.
Reliance Jio’s “immediate requirement of operational interconnection capacity estimated based on transparent industry practice is of the order of 4,000 – 5,000 E1s per operator for the three incumbent operators and it is therefore apparent that at the current rate, the incumbent operators have not demonstrated any real intent to resolve this issue,” the statement said.
The telecom regulator had called a meeting of the incumbents and Reliance Jio on September 9 and asked them to resolve the issue of Interconnection through bilateral discussions. Post this, the three incumbents - Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, and Vodafone said they issued more points of interconnection to Reliance Jio.
However, Reliance Jio maintains that more than 75 percent calls are still failing at points of interconnection and had also written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India alleging the same. Bharti Airtel in a statement issued on September 18, said Reliance Jio’s statements are intended to cover up technical issues in its own network which is causing call failures.
The regulator on Monday asked for data on call failures at points of Interconnection between September 15-19 and said that it will decide the future course of action after receiving the data from the companies.
Points of interconnection help consumers across different networks to connect to each other.