COAI blames telecom regulator of bias against incumbent players

The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) on Monday accused the telecom regulator of being biased against incumbent operators. COAI represents the interest of the three big incumbent players, including Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.

The COAI said that it is seeing a pattern of discrimination against the existing mobile operators.

In a press statement, COAI said it is shocked that some of the papers seem to have been crafted and timed to serve the interests of new players, with complete disregard for the massive investments made by the existing operators. “While COAI appreciates that TRAI would welcome new entrants to the sector, this must not extend to adapting policy measures to either promote or discriminate between existing and new players,” the statement said. Though the industry body did not name any particular operator, its statement is clearly targeted at Reliance Jio.

Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, said, “Over the past few months, the industry has seen an unprecedented deluge of discussion papers from TRAI. Some of the consultation papers appear to be heavily loaded in favour of new players and point towards a bias against the existing operators.”

The cellular operators have highlighted three specific instances if bias. For example, TRAI sought to regulate the charges for termination of Internet Telephony calls without even finalising the routing and numbering framework. “TRAI is trying to regulate the price of a service, which is niche and largely unknown. The industry is unable to comprehend this urgency when contrasted with the fact that TRAI itself has chosen not to regulate the prices of other niche services such as HD channels, Toll Free Services and International Calling Cards,” COAI said.

The other issue is related to Mobile Termination Charge, which was first introduced in 2003. The present interconnect regime was implemented by TRAI in March 2015 and it was clearly stated by the regulator that the next review would take place in 2017-18. “It is, therefore, surprising to see the urgency displayed by TRAI in this matter, with the consultation process initiated at such an early date and despite the fact that the matter is sub-judice in various courts of law. It appears that the exercise is aimed at hurting the financial and operational viability of existing operators,” the COAI said.

“The bias is also evident from the fact that TRAI in an unprecedented move reduced the block size of 2300 MHz band spectrum from 20 MHz to 10 MHz, only to accommodate existing broadband spectrum holders who would have otherwise crossed the band specific cap beyond 30 MHz,” it added.

The battle between new and incumbent operators over regulatory issues is not new. When Reliance had first launched mobile services through CDMA technology, the TRAI was then accused by the incumbent operators of playing favourites.