Reliance Jio alleges cellular operators' body is biased towards Airtel, Vodafone and Idea
It has sought a complete revamp of the association, claiming that only the three dominant service providers have decision-making powers.
Reliance Jio on Sunday alleged that the Cellular Operators' Association of India worked only for the vested interests of the three dominant service providers in India. In a letter to the association's Chairman Gopal Vittal and Director General Rajan S Mathews, it said Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea accounted for 68% of the total votes in the body, which has made the other core members inconsequential. "...The entire decision-making power and authority rests only with the incumbent dominant operators," it said, seeking a complete revamp of the association.
The association later said in a statement that the issue was an internal matter and that Jio's "conduct is not becoming of a member" when there were forums within the body that it could approach, Firstpost reported. The Mukesh Ambani-led company made the allegations even as Idea Cellular agreed to provide 230% additional interconnection points to help Jio users complete calls. While there were 565 ports for access earlier, Idea said it has now provided 1,865, according to PTI.
Jio had alleged that its users were facing an abysmal number of call drops because the country's major network providers had not provided enough interconnection points. In a statement on September 13, Jio had said: "In 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 viz. Airtel, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd." Ambani had launched the new network on September 1, promising free voice calls to all Jio customers and data at Rs 50 per GB.