Telco war: Jio, incumbent players to meet Trai today

COAI said that operators are in no position by way of network or financially to terminate volumes of traffic that are markedly asymmetric

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has called a meeting on Friday with telecom operators to resolve the ongoing dispute involving Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea over interconnect points.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has written to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that incumbents are “not obliged to entertain inter-connect requests” that are “anti-competitive”. It has sought PMO’s intervention to “restore fair competition”. COAI says incumbent operators are in no position by way of network or financial resources to terminate volumes of traffic that are “markedly asymmetric”.

“Neither are they obliged to entertain inter-connect requests which are derived from abnormally induced traffic patterns that game the interconnection-usage charge regime and are anti-competitive,” COAI said in the letter to the PMO.

Reliance Jio, which commercially launched its services on Monday, has accused incumbent players like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone of not releasing sufficient inter-connection ports. COAI had earlier written to the regulator requesting it to not limit the meeting to the top three operators as it is an industry issue. All members of COAI have come together against Jio as far as releasing interconnect points are concerned and which is why COAI has requested the regulator to invite others for the discussion as well.

So far, Jio has been saying that the big three are abusing their dominant position. In its letter to TRAI, COAI said, “We believe that the issue pertains to all members of COAI and not limited to the three operators. We, therefore, request Trai to invite all members of COAI for this meeting”.