Home
Telecom
Telecom News
Reliance Jio Slams Airtel, Vodafone's 'Baseless Allegations' on TRAI's IUC Ruling

Reliance Jio Slams Airtel, Vodafone's 'Baseless Allegations' on TRAI's IUC Ruling 82j1j

By Manish Singh | Updated: 20 September 2017 21:55 IST

Highlights

Reliance Jio has slammed the accusation that TRAI's order will benefit it
Airtel and Vodafone accused TRAI of favouring Reliance Jio in its order
TRAI has slashed the interconnect usage charges

ment

Reliance Jio has rejected the accusation by rival giants TRAI announced Tuesday evening. 2r5y25

One-year-old telecom operator Reliance Jio, which is owned by India's largest industrial house Reliance Industries, said on Wednesday it has always offered voice calls to customers in India at no charge, hence there was no logic in the accusation by Airtel and Vodafone.

"There is no question of any advantage from the new IUC regulation to Jio as it has already ed on all the benefits to customers. We deny any benefits to Jio," Reliance Jio said in a statement. "At a time when the world is moving towards IP-based technologies, cost of voice has come down to a fraction of a paisa and the customers should enjoy this advantage."

Late Tuesday evening, regulator TRAI India impose for handling voice calls originating from each other's networks. The revised interconnection charge, which is effective starting October 1, is 8 paise per minute, down from 14 paise per minute. TRAI also said that starting January 1, 2020, the interconnect usage charge will be completely abolished.

Airtel and Vodafone fiercely resisted the new directive from TRAI, saying that the move is in favour of Reliance Jio. Airtel, which has over 260 million subscribers on its network, said it was "genuinely dismayed" by the decision. "The suggested IUC rate, which has been arrived at in a completely non-transparent fashion, benefits only one operator which enjoys a huge traffic asymmetry in its favour," the company said in a statement.

Vodafone, which is in the process of merging with telecom operator Idea, found the decision yet "another retrograde regulatory measure that will significantly benefit the new entrant alone while adversely affecting the rest of the industry as a whole."

"It is appalling that the incumbent operators have [...] gone ahead and made untrue and baseless allegations against the process for determination of IUC or the regulator. The incumbent operators have a history of opposing all the IUC regulations over the last 8 years, but have not been successful in thwarting ing of the benefits of lower IUC to customers," Reliance Jio said.

Despite Jio's statement, analysts say that it will benefit the most from the TRAI's directive. For one, they said, its operation cost will substantially go down as it will have to pay other telecom operators less money. Some analysts estimated that Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and other telecom operators will see a substantial drop in their revenue.

Comments

For the latest reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.