Reliance Jio on Wednesday said existing telecom operators were blocking its efforts to launch its services commercially. RJio said that a large part of telephone calls made by its test users were not being completed because the incumbent operators were not releasing adequate points of interconnection (POI).
“Due to insufficient interconnection, even the existing 15 lakh test users are experiencing 65 per cent call failures owing to POI congestion. It would clearly not be prudent (or compliant with the licence) for Reliance Jio to contemplate launching of commercial services with this level of call failures,” RJio said in a letter to the Department of Telecom.
A point of interconnection (POI) is the physical place where two networks connect with each other. For example, if an RJio user dials an Airtel subscriber, then the call is handed over between the two networks at such a point of interconnection. As the traffic between two networks increases, more points of interconnection are required.
According to RJio, it is targeting 100 million subscribers within the first six months of launch for which it had approached existing operators seeking adequate number of interconnect points. “Instead of augmenting the POIs, other operators are blocking the POI augmentation on various unreasonable grounds,” RJio said.
Responding to the Cellular Operators Association of India’s allegation that the test services being offered by RJio were illegal, the Mukesh Ambani-backed operator said that it was complying with all the conditions stipulated under the licence.
COAI letter ‘malicious’“The contents of the letter from COAI are malicious, unfounded, ill-informed, and frivolous and are contrary to actual facts,” RJio said, adding that it was embarking on a project that is far superior to any existing telecom network for which it has legitimate rights to test the services before going live.
RJio is investing over ₹1,50,000 crore in this phase of the project. Once launched, the services will cover over 18,000 towns and two lakh villages across all the 22 circles. “ Needless to state, since there are no precedents to rely on, this involves humongous and unique technical challenges, and therefore, such scale of deployment of a new technology calls for extensive testing to ensure that customer services are optimal and unhindered and without any issues,” RJio said countering the COAI allegations.
On Tuesday, COAI had said that RJio was offering full-fledged services under the garb of trials to bypass regulations related to pricing and fair competition. RJio said it has been informing the process relating to the test trials to the DoT and TRAI from time to time. “We state that all the steps taken by COAI,are in fact attempts to sabotage the market entry of RJIL, a new player and malign its name,” RJio said.