Reliance Jio has asked Vodafone and Idea Cellular to release telecommunication interconnection ports, and cited their "unlawful and illegal delay" in providing added connections as a reason for its current poor quality of service, PTI reported. The new entrant asked the telecom operators to comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's October 7 direction and "release the shortfall in E1s" before the October 17 deadline.

Officials said Trai has found an increased level of congestion in telecom networks that triggered call failures in Reliance Jio's network. Airtel, Vodafone and Idea maintain that they have complied with Jio's requirements of interconnection points. In a letter dated October 12 and addressed to Telecom Secretary and Trai Chairperson, Reliance Jio said its customers experienced an average call drop of 87% on Vodafone on October 8 and around 67% on Idea network.

Reliance Jio had applied for interconnection ports to facilitate its target of 100 million subscribers by March 2017. It warned Vodafone and Idea that they would be held "responsible for all consequences thereof". Vodafone and Idea have not yet responded to queries by the news agency.

Jio alleged that Vodafone has to provide 7,614 and 1,844 more interconnection points for access and national long distance services, while Idea owes it 6,060 and 1,230 additional interconnection points for access and national long distance services respectively.

Reliance Jio was launched on September 1, while its commercial launch was on September 5. Its offers, such as free voice calls to all Jio users and 1GB of 4G data at Rs 50, had triggered a battle of the best tariff among telecom operators in India. However, it drew criticism soon after its launch with an abysmal call drop rate, which it blamed other service providers for not providing adequate interconnection points.