Businessman Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications on Tuesday blamed a “new telecom operator” for the financial trouble plaguing the sector, in an apparent reference to his brother Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. R-Com said telecom firms had been adversely affected by the rise in debt and decline in revenue in the industry.

“The telecom industry’s current financial problems, to some extent, can be attributed to the entry of a new telecom operator and its strategy of freebies to gain customer and market share,” R-Com said in a regulatory filing.

It also noted that the amount of debt listed telecom operators are in had exceeded their market capitalisation for the first time, PTI reported.

R-Com launches 4G VPN business solutions

R-Com on Tuesday launched its 4G Virtual Private Network solution “Branch Connect”, aimed at helping businesses extend their corporate network to websites.

“If an enterprise’s hybrid/private/public cloud site is already connected to Reliance VPN, all that each of the other sites would need to do to connect to the corporate network is a plug-and-play,” the company said in a statement.

Moreover, R-Com believes that selling stake in its mobile tower business to Canadian firm Brookefield Infrastructure and the merger of its wireless business with the Aircel group will reduce its existing debt by up to Rs 25,000 crore.

It also denied claims that the company had delayed payments by more than three months.