Efforts to browbeat the regulator not a great idea: R S Sharma

Interview with chairman, Trai

Ever since Reliance Jio launched its services, the telecom industry has seen heated exchanges between it and the incumbents. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) was forced to intervene as the customers were suffering because of poor services. The regulatory body's chairman RS Sharma spoke to Kiran Rathee on a host of issues, including the steps Trai is taking to protect the customers. Edited excerpts:

Ever since Jio launched its services, there have been claims and counter-claims. What is your take as a regulator?

There is an issue which Reliance Jio has brought to our notice relating to interconnect. Any telecom service provider in the market has to interconnect with other telcos and the licensing conditions of every operator prescribe that they provide adequate interconnections to ensure that customers are able to make calls without any interruptions. Jio complained to us that a large number of their calls were failing at the points of interconnect (PoIs) because of inadequacy of points provided by many other operators. Looking at the call drop figures which were extremely high, we asked for the details from other operators. Before that, we had called a meeting of some of the operators about two weeks back, and I am told in that meeting (I was not present), the operators had agreed to provide adequate PoIs. After that because this whole issue was brought to our notice and the situation has not improved, we had asked for a report of five days (September 15 to 19) regarding details of call failures at PoIs.

What was the outcome of the report?

The reports point to a very serious situation - call failures are much more than the permitted levels of 0.5 per cent. Therefore, we have issued show-cause notices to the concerned operators, seeking explanation why this was happening because this is violation of the licensing conditions and the quality of service norms. This notice was issued on Tuesday and we have given 10 days to the operators to respond.

So, telcos have violated the licence conditions?

We have asked for their response. We would like to know who is responsible for this failure. More than the tiff between the service providers, it's an extremely serious issue for us from consumer rights point of view. What wrong have the consumers done by becoming customers of these service providers? For us, every consumer has an equal right. Everybody must have the facility to get their calls through.

The incumbent operators are saying that Jio's free voice offer is predatory pricing as the tariffs should not be less than 14 paise per minute. What are your views on that?

I can't give a pronouncement on that.

Jio calls are IP-based. Are they required to pay interconnect charges?

As of now, regardless of technology, whenever you have an interoperable call, the operator which originates the call pays the other operator 14 paise per minute. It is technology agnostic.

When can we expect the consultation paper on net neutrality?

By the end of October we should be able to bring out the consultation paper. We are drafting it and we have already got the comments and counter-comments on the pre-consultation paper and now we will issue the paper.

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has raised red flag over the interconnection usage charges (IUC) review announced by Trai. Your organisation has twice extended the date for receiving comments. When can we expect the new regulation on IUC?

I can't say when you can expect the recommendations because that will depend on the comments, counter-comments and open-house discussion. Typically, it takes 5-6 months for the final recommendations to come. We started pervious interconnect review in August 2014 and the order came in March 2015. It would take almost the same amount of time. It is operators that had objected to BSNL's plan. We had put the BSNL plan on hold. It is a part of the consultation paper, which mentions need to review. That clearly specifies as to why we are reviewing the charges.

COAI had earlier termed Trai biased. What do you have to say on the charges?

I have already stated that the allegations are baseless. I am also of the view that the effort to browbeat the regulator is not a great idea from the overall industry environment perspective.

The spectrum auction is starting on Saturday. What are your comments on that?

We are all looking forward to the auction. Operators often cite lack of spectrum as one of the main reasons for call drops and quality of service. Hopefully, the problem will go away after the auction.