Sunil Mittal, Mukesh Ambani give India Mobile Congress a miss

Top corporate leaders like Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal gave mega telecom event India Mobile Congress (IMC) a miss this time around.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, Bharti Enterprises Vice-Chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal and Reliance Jio Infocomm board member Mahendra Nahata were present at the inaugural session.

However, the two corporate honchos, Ambani and Mittal, who attended IMC in its last two editions, skipped the event this year.

Akash and Isha Ambani (children of Mukesh Ambani), who were scheduled to speak at a panel discussion on 'leaders for the next generation', too skipped the event. Also missing in attendance were Ananya Birla (daughter of Kumar Mangalam Birla), Kavin Bharti Mittal (Bharti scion), and Wipro chairman Rishad Premji.

A key annual event for the Indian telecom industry, the three-day extravaganza that will go on till October 16 with 5G in spotlight, has received 25,000 registrations and is expected to see footfalls of about one lakh people, Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash said.

Prakash said 500 companies, 250 startups and 110 foreign buyers are participating in the flagship event.

The signature event for the Indian telecom sector comes at a time when the industry has, once again, turned into a virtual battleground, with incumbent operators and latest entrant Reliance Jio clashing over call connect charges.

The old and new telcos recently locked horns, as Airtel accused Reliance Jio of "gaming" the system of paying for calls to rival network, a charge that Mukesh Ambani-led Jio countered saying incumbents were charging high voice tariffs and manipulating the system to detriment of their users.

Earlier this month, Jio cited regulatory uncertainty over review of sunset clause for call termination charges, and announced it will charge customers 6 paise per minute for voice calls made to rival phone networks, but will compensate them by giving free data of equal value.

In a statement, Jio had said the 6 paisa charge will remain in place till the time telecom operators are required to pay rivals for mobile phone calls made by their users to other operators'' network.