 "Reliance Jio")
JioThe battle between incumbent telecom operators and Reliance Jio, which erupted over interconnection usage charges (IUC) last week, continued on Wednesday.
Hours after the Cellular Operators Association of India said sufficient interconnection ports had been released to Jio, the latter responded saying that against the 12,500 E1 interface ports demanded by it, the top three operators had released only 1,400. Speaking to Business Standard, a Jio spokesperson said: "It is grossly incorrect to suggest that sufficient number of ports have been given to support 15 million users. This is reflected in the experience on the field, where over 65 per cent of calls to networks of the top three operators are failing today. There are over 18 million failed calls per day to these networks".
Over the past few months, Jio has asked for a time-bound release of ports to meet expected traffic on the network so that other operators are able to plan better. However, less than four per cent of the required ports have been released in the first year.
Also Read
Under the prevailing regulations, Jio has to submit traffic estimates and seek interconnection from incumbents before launch. Jio had sought 12,500 E1 interconnection ports to service 22 million subscribers. Subsequent augmentation would depend on traffic growth.
Responding to Jio's letter to Trai, Rajan S Mathews, director general, COAI, said: "We understand from various reports that RJio has three million users on its network. Our member operators have given them sufficient number of ports to support up to 15 million users. We await the launch of their commercial services."
