Reliance Jio VS Bharti Airtel - battle ground shifts to CCI, Airtel hits back at Jio

There is no end to the war of words between India’s top telecom operator Airtel and Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio. The friction between the incumbent players and Jio started long before Reliance Jio launched its commercial telecom services. Airtel has now issued a statement to yet again to address the Point of Interconnections (PoIs) issue that was raised by Reliance Jio ever since its launch, most recently by filing a complaint against the incumbent players - Airtel, Vodafone, Idea at the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Airtel says, “The PoIs have been provided well above the customer growth projection provided by Jio to Airtel. The capacity provided is ideal for serving over 190 million customers on the Jio network and is more than double of the 72.5 million total customers currently claimed by Jio.” Airtel claims that it has provided a total of over 35,000 PoIs to Reliance Jio in five months which is the highest amongst all operators. Reliance Jio was first to move CCI against the incumbents for allegedly abusing their dominant market power and forming a cartel to deny Jio PoIs.

Sunil bharti Mittal led Airtel’s complaint to CCI on February 2 stated that Reliance Jio id offering predatory pricing and it could lead to anti-competitive behaviour. CCI has asked its investigation department to look into the matter. Jio shot back at Airtel for this move by accusing the operator of acting against consumer interest and saying, "This latest salvo by Airtel is a clear ploy to divert attention from its own violation of licensing conditions by having denied adequate POIs to Jio and the already announced censure proceedings by the TRAI against them. Airtel is also acting against consumer interest by stridently opposing the ‘free voice’ benefit that Jio has been able to provide customers due to its superior next generation IP based technology.”, Jio said in a statement.

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This is after a raging battle at the telecom tribunal between the operators over Jio’s free services, incumbents also alleged the telecom regulator of being a “mute spectator” on Jio’s free services. The regulator cleared Jio of any wrongdoing with regard to its services. Jio in a response to Business Insider India said, “All tariff plans of Jio have been found to be non-predatory by the regulator, so the question of our offerings being predatory does not arise. India’s telecom sector has tended to progress due to disruptive innovation brought in by a new comer, but unfortunately, the incumbents led by Airtel have always tried to block such initiatives."

Looks like this battle between the incumbent telecom players and Reliance Jio is far from over.