Faced with severe call failures affecting millions of Reliance Jio SIM users across the country for weeks, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm has asked rivals Vodafone and Idea Cellular to provide sufficient points of interconnection (PoIs) as directed by the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
The Trai had on October 7 directed telecom operators to adhere to quality of services (QoS) rules and set October 17 as the deadline to resolve the matter to ensure that consumers are not affected.
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In separate but identical letters dated October 12 to Vodafone and Idea Cellular, and marked to Telecom Secretary and Trai Chairman, Reliance Jio alleged that its customers experienced average call drop as high as 87 percent on Vodafone and 67 percent on Idea network for NLD service as on October 8. It said that the telecom operators will be held responsible for all consequences if they don't adhere to Trai's direction.
"In any event, the requisite E1 ports (interconnect points, with technical parameters) projected at 6524 Access E1s and 1531 NLD E1s for 50 million subscribers, past overdue since September 2016, per annexure to this letter be immediately provided no later than two days from the date of issue thereof," says the letter.
"Reliance Jio reserves the right to seek expeditious provisioning of E1s, even ahead of the said schedule, of the E1s to be provided are not sufficient to meet the quality of services regulations for the traffic generated on its traffic."
Reliance Jio has also served a similar letter to Bharti Airtel but said its call failure rate is just 29 percent, which is much lower than that of Vodafone and Idea Cellular. However, call failure rate permitted in the country is 0.5 percent.
Jio has been facing problem ever since it was launched with its request to existing major players to provide sufficient PoIs falling to deaf ears. It claimed in September that as many as 120 million calls to the top three telecom operators failed everyday.
Both the parties have filed complaints with the Trai but the regulator has sided with Jio, saying that call failures were due to inadequate PoIs from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. It had served a show-cause notice to the three operators, asking them to respond in 10 days' time why the regulator shouldn't take action against them for not adhering to service quality guidelines.
[With inputs from IANS]
