Jio shoots off fresh letters to telcos over interconnect points

Amid the ongoing tussle between Reliance Jio and incumbent operators over points of interconnects (PoIs), the Mukesh Ambani firm has sent fresh letters to Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular to immediately provide the requisite number of points.

The letters dated October 12 have also been marked to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman and Secretary, Department of Telecommunications.

Trai had on October 7 directed all telecom operators to meet quality of service (QoS) norms and furnish a compliance report by October 17. While issuing the direction, Trai had said that PoI congestion resulted in large failure of inter-operator calls affecting the interest of the consumers.

The Sunil Bharti Mittal firm said it had already submitted the compliance report to Trai and that the company meets all the quality of service norms with zero-congestion level with regard to Jio. The firm also said utilisation levels of PoIs with Jio stood at 70-80 per cent.

In its letter to the telcos, Jio said: “You never adhere to the schedule for providing E1s under one pretext or the other and this continues as at date...none of the pretexts raised by you have any standing based on facts or on law in as much as your obligation to provide the requisite PoIs to meet QoS regulations.”

In June, Jio had raised the demand regarding PoIs for estimated 22 million subscribers and the subsequent September 2016, December 2016 and March 2017 were based on 50 mn, 75 mn and 100 mn subscribers.

“It may be noted that the demand for E1s (interconnect points) based on 50 million subscribers, scheduled for September 2016, is already past overdue,” Jio said in the letter.

The company further said unless its demand for interconnect points were met, the current PoI congestion levels would continue unabatedly to be much higher than the permissible limits. According to the quality of service rules pertaining to interconnection, not more than five out of every 1,000 calls can fail. 

“In deference to Trai’s directions, Jio therefore demands immediate release of the shortfall of E1s… Needless to state, Jio will comply with the terms of payment for the requisite E1s as per agreed terms and extend all coordination,” Jio said