Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel today said it has provided over 35,000 Points of Interconnect (PoIs) to 4G operator Reliance Jio in five months.
Reliance Jio has received maximum number of PoI for incoming calls as compared with rival telecom operators, Airtel said.
Of these 27,719 PoIs — 79 percent of the total — have been dedicated for incoming calls from Jio customers, which is the highest amongst all operators.
The fact assumes significance because majority of Reliance Jio customers is facing poor voice service across the country. Jio has more than 72 million 4G subscribers on its telecom network thanks to a free promotion started in September.
Reliance Jio Infocomm in a statement said the statement from Airtel is malicious and misleading. “This latest statement is a continuation of Airtel’s ongoing mischievous and motivated campaign to divert attention from its anti-competitive and anti-consumer actions and violations of license conditions which are being investigated by the Authorities,” said Reliance Jio.
Reliance Jio said over 2.6 crore NLD calls are failing daily amounting to 53.4 percent call failure as on 31 January 2017 as against TRAI norm of 0.5 percent.
Airtel said the PoIs provided are well above the customer growth projection by Jio. The interconnect 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 provided approx. 40,600 PoIs to Vodafone, which has 202 million customers, over a period of 21 years. Of these 23,950 PoIs are for incoming calls.
Airtel has provided approx. 38,130 PoIs to Idea, which has 185 million customers, over a period of 21 years. Of these 23,694 PoIs are for incoming calls.
Bharti Airtel said it provided approx. 13,400 PoIs to Reliance Communications, which has 86 million customers in over 13 years. Of these 8415 PoIs are for incoming calls – less than one third of what has been provided to Jio.
Airtel has provided approx. 9,000 POIs to Telenor, which has 58 million customers, in over 7 years. Of these 6510 PoIs are for incoming calls – less than one fourth of what has been provided to Jio.
Due to continued non-compliance of TRAI’s tariff orders by Jio by providing free services for the past 5-6 months, there is a tsunami of incoming voice traffic on the Airtel network, impacting the service experience of Airtel customers.
The asymmetry in traffic due to Jio’s free offers has also resulted complete failure of the present IUC regime, which assumes nearly symmetric traffic while fixing the below cost termination charge. The present termination charge of 14 paisa is less than half of the actual cost of terminating calls on the network, resulting in huge loss to Airtel.