After Airtel and Idea Cellular, Vodafone on Thursday said it has decided to increase the points of interconnect (POIs) with Reliance Jio three-fold.

The operator, however, added that it is hopeful that all issues that it has raised with TRAI and Jio will be duly considered and resolved at the earliest.

Earlier Idea Cellular had said that it is releasing additional interconnections to support 6-7 million Reliance Jio subscribers. Airtel had said that it will also increase interconnection to support 15 million subscribers.

The three operators had initially refused to release additional interconnection until they received higher termination rates. At present they get 14 paise a minute for every incoming call. This, they say, is too little given that the number of calls coming in from RJio’s network is abnormally high due to free voice calls. TRAI had intervened after consumers complained of frequent call drops.

Reliance Jio, on Tuesday, said that 75 per cent of calls made by its subscribers were failing due to lack of adequate points of interconnection.

“In the last 10 days alone, over 22 crore calls have failed on the Airtel network, while 52 crore calls have failed cumulatively on the networks of the three incumbent operators — Airtel, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd,” RJio had said in a press statement.

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