Mukesh Ambani hits back: Jio's Strongly Worded Letter to Telcos may Drag Infighting over Jio's 4G Launch to Court

The telecom tussle may be headed to where most of the telecom matters end up, the courts. Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio has written a strongly worded letter to the telecom industry body COAI representing India’s top telcos including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea. The letter warns COAI of legal action from Jio on the ongoing fight between Jio and existing operators over Jio’s free trial offer for consumers, it says “(“Reliance Jio”) protest against the gross and serious acts of breach of trust, fraudulent conduct, and gross misrepresentation of facts with wilful and deliberate intent to malign and damage the interests of Reliance Jio. Reliance Jio reserves all its rights to take any or all available legal recourse against COAI, including anyone who were parties to such acts, in their individual or other capacities.”

Jio’s long running free trial offer has landed Jio in a fight with the existing telecom operators who have written to the top offices in the govt including the PMO stating that Reliance Jio is offering full-fledged services to consumers for free in the guise of trial testing and the govt should stop the test immediately. The telecom operators have also accused Jio of poaching their customers with its free services.

In its letter to COAI, Jio does not just stop at a warning for a legal action but goes on to accuse COAI of promoting cartelisation saying, “COAI is deliberately and maliciously acting at the behest of and as a mouthpiece for certain specific incumbent dominant operators, having vested interest against Reliance Jio. It only evidences further COAI is openly promoting cartelisation in the guise of promoting the cause of the industry, while actually perpetrating anti competition practices and misguiding and misinforming the Government, Statutory Authorities and the consumers.”

With almost three million subscribers, Reliance Jio is already becoming a major player and a threat to the existing telecom operators even before its commercial launch. Jio has rolled out its services on a trial basis where it is offering consumers free data for three months bundled with its Lyf handsets and other smartphones including Samsung and Panasonic. Recently Jio has also asked its employees to use Jio connection only. While Jio is trying all ways possible to add subscribers to its network there is still uncertainty over when it will launch its services commercially. This uncertainty over the commercial launch is not going down well with the existing telecom players where the fight now has Jio warning COAI of legal action against the telecom industry body of which Jio too is a member. COAI dismisses Jio’s legal warning but hopes that the govt will intervene in the matter, if not the PMO then at least the telecom department or the telecom regulator.