TRAI plays the boss, issues warning to Jio and other Telcos to settle their issue

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is not an easy nut to crack and the telcos need to register this fact seriously. In a strict warning to India's top telcos and Reliance Jio Infocomm, Trai has given an ultimatum to resolve the contentious interconnect matter among themselves. Trai’s order comes with further warning that it would act if quality of service drops and consumers suffer, as reported by The Economic Times.

"If quality of service suffers, if consumers suffer, Trai will take action. That is Trai's job," a senior official told ET on Friday after the meeting. "The telcos should sit across the table and resolve it."

The war has been waged by the top telcos like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea against the newly launched Reliance Jio Infocom. Mukesh Ambani owned Jio had sought an adequate number of PoIs for their service to which the top telcos didn’t show much interest in. Citing traffic imbalance, the telcos have refused any additional PoIs to Jio. However after Friday’s meeting, an official of a top telco confirmed that they are willing to talk to Jio and provide ‘reasonable number’ of additional PoIs.

What are these PoIs? PoIs are used to connect calls from one telecom operator to another. Jio has complained to Trai the other day that due to other telco’s non cooperation in giving adequate PoIs, the call quality is suffering.


“We have put forth our point of view to Trai. It is for Trai to look into the matter. There is no time frame indicated by the Trai," Jio board member Mahendra Nahata told the ET after the meeting. "It is a fight for justice for Indian customers, and not those of Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone or Idea."

In a statement, market leader Bharti Airtel said it will provide Jio more PoIs, as per the bilateral agreement signed between the two operators, so that customers aren't affected. Incumbent telcos had signed interconnect pacts with Jio back in 2014, confirmed the ET report.

Traffic Tsunami

While common mass are happy to know about the freebies of Reliance Jio’s welcome pack, Airtel is quite nervous about the asymmetric traffic tsunami that would result from Jio. Airtel has asked Trai to intervene to curb the asymmetric traffic that might result in abusing the network.

"In this regard, IUC (interconnect usage charge) is an effective tool in the hands of Trai, which we hope they will use judiciously," Airtel said, adding that Trai should make sure pricing by any telco is "IUC compliant, non-predatory and non-discriminatory".

Airtel expects that once Jio starts charging its customers from January 2017, there would be no issue. "The traffic will inevitably get to a more balanced level and PoIs will be less of an issue," said an Airtel release. Top telcos have earlier said they do not possess the financial or network resources to handle the imbalance of the huge traffic generated through Jio's network due to the free offers.

According to the news report by The Economic Times, Trai Chairman RS Sharma did not attend the meeting, which was led by Secretary Sudhir Gupta. Other Trai members, representatives of incumbent telcos that included Bharti Airtel's Chief Regulatory Officer Ravi Gandhi, Vodafone India's P Balaji and Idea Cellular's Rajat Mukarji, besides Nahata of Jio were present.

Rajan S Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents the top telcos as well as Jio, wasn't allowed to be part of the meeting, since only the three telcos were invited, marking a dramatic start to the crucial talks. At the meeting, incumbent telcos said given the volume of traffic from Jio, they can't give interconnect at 14 paise a minute which is very low.

Jio countered saying the rate had been preset. Incumbents also said that traffic from Jio could go up to 4,000 minutes per user a month given the free voice offering, which would be practically impossible to handle, while Jio's officials said its traffic currently is 450 minutes per user a month.

Where lies the end of the drama?
It is believed that Trai has been able to bring some kind of end to a stalemate between Jio and incumbent carriers and the interconnection issue is expected to be sorted out within 90 days.

Trai asked to increase points of interconnections incrementally. The regulator's concern was to improve service quality," Mathews said. "We expect Reliance Jio to start discussions with incumbent players and regulator should look into incremental numbers." During the meeting, incumbent telcos had sought clarity on whether the services of Jio were now "commercial".

When told they were, incumbents pointed out that Jio then can't offer free services for more than 90 days. Sources at incumbent telcos also said they believe adequate PoIs have already been given for Jio which currently has some five million users, but are willing to give more once 70% capacity is reached for those existing PoIs. According to them, one PoI can support 12,000 subscribers, with Airtel itself having provided 700 of them. "As and when they (Jio) reach 70% capacity, they can request us, and we will provide incremental PoIs within 90 days, according to the ET news report.