Telcos Hit Back: No end in sight for infighting over Jio’s impending launch and free trial offer

While customers are eager for the long awaited commercial launch of Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio’s services, now so are the telecom operators. For a couple of days there has been a massive war of words between Jio and the incumbent telecom players on Jio’s trial offer that provides customers free data services for three months and on the extended duration of Jio’s ongoing test period. In a letter to the telecom regulator Jio had put the blame on existing telecom operators for the delay in their commercial launch saying that existing operators are not offering the requisite interconnection bandwidth and that the incumbents are using their dominant position to stifle other operators. And now the telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea refute Jio’s allegation, in a statement released today, Industry body COAI says, "They(COAI members) have already provided Reliance Jio with enough interconnect capacity to meet the usual demand of 15 to 20 million customers. We understand Reliance Jio presently has approximately 2 to 3 million customers using their network‎. Hence, we are unable to substantiate Reliance Jio's claim for additional capacity."

COAI had earlier pointed out to the govt that Jio is giving full-fledged services in the guise of trial offer and the elongated free trial testing is helping Jio poach customers, it said, "(Jio) has also tried to port subscribers from other operators, even though this is a prelaunch test period". Jio now offers unlimited free data services for three months with their Lyf handsets and few other smartphones that they have partnered with. Jio’s extravagant trial offer had the incumbent telecom operators approaching the top government offices including the PMO to stop Reliance Jio's trial testing immediately. We are given to understand from our source that Jio will continue the free trial offer as promised and while they will abide by govt’s directions, they are certain that the regulator will not stop the free trial as it impacts the consumers.

Well the infighting in the telecom industry is getting bigger and bigger, looks like only an intervention from the government can put an end to it.