UNPRECEDENTED: MDAG kicks off war, COAI nudges PMO

According to media reports, the Cellular Operators Asssociation of India (COAI) has shot up a strongly written letter to the Prime Ministers’s Office (PMO) stating that the incumbent operators are not obliged to provide interconnect points to Reliance Jio.

The content of the letter primarily highlights the volume of traffic origination from Jio onto the existing telecom players' network.  The letter sent to PMO has subsequently been sent to DOT (Department of Telecommunication) and TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) for their action and information.

The first letter states that the traffic emerging out of Jio’s network is putting strain on the existing network capabilities of the incumbents, and is hurting financially due to the disparity between the TRAI determined cost and the actual cost of delivering voice calls.

The second letter asks for clarification from the TRAI with regards to whether the services offered by Reliance Industries are commercial in nature or else.

There has been a war of words going on between the industry body COAI and Jio, since Reliance announced its full fledged services roll out. Reliance Jio, new telecom entrant aims to capture more than 100 million customers by way of offering phenomenally low data rates and free voice calls.

Since Reliance Jio’s announcement on September 1, market capitalisation of incumbent players like Bharti, Idea and RCom has plunged by more than Rs 10,000 crore.