Sunil Mittal, RJio representative meet Telecom Secretary

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and a Reliance Jio representative on Thursday met telecom secretary J S Deepak amid tussle between incumbent players and the Mukesh Ambani-led fourth-generation mobile services company.

While the matter discussed could not be ascertained, Jio representative expressed concern over blocking of the firm’s trial services by incumbent operators.

A war of words had broken out between existing telcos and new-entrant Reliance Jio after COAI called the latter’s testing of a network a bypassing of regulations, with the Ambani's firm hitting back by saying this was a bid to block rollout.

COAI, which has members including Bharti Airtel, Idea and Vodafone, on August 8 wrote to the Department of Telecom (DoT) demanding that Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) or RJio immediately stop all connections provided to 1.5 million users because it had allegedly bypassed regulations by offering full-fledged services under the guise of test connections.

RJio hit back in an eight-page letter saying COAI charges were "malicious, unfounded, ill-informed, and frivolous and are contrary to actual facts" and was "promoting the vested interests of the incumbent dominant operators".

COAI members including COAI Chairman Gopal Vittal (MD & CEO - India & South Asia, Bharti Airtel) and Vice Chairman Sunil Sood (MD & CEO, Vodafone India) are likely to meet the secretary tomorrow.