Out of all the network providers in India, it is only Airtel that is taking a step to welcome Jio network. After earlier providing about 10000 PoIs (Point of Interconnect) to Reliance Jio, 7,007 additional POIs are now offered by Airtel consequent to the meetings of the Hon’ble Minister of Communication and TRAI Chairman with the CEOs of Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and RJIL earlier this week on the subject of breach of QOS parameters.
The additional Interconnect points will help ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) and help make the users get a good experience. According to the press release given by Jio, more than 280 crore calls have failed between RJIL and Airtel over the last three and a half months and that is because of the shortage of PoIs.
The Jio call drop issue has been there since the first day and the reason is the non availability of PoIs, and now, the 17000 PoIs will help serve over 75 million customers, according to Bharti Airtel.
The release from Reliance Jio reads the following.
It may be noted that all operators have a mandatory and unconditional obligation under the license to provide adequate POIs to all the other operators. This is irrespective of the status of operations of the other operators or the traffic pattern and is not a favour to any operator.
The contention that regulatory obligations permit to provide interconnect in a period of 90 days is misplaced considering the severe QOS and congestion issues that the non-provision of POIs has caused. There is no entitlement of timing when it comes to such severe breach of QOS as against the 90 days indicated by Airtel.
It may be worth noting that Airtel has welcomed Jio and also had stated that “Jio is here to stay”, and this is not the first time that the leading network provider in the country is allowing PoIs for the calls to go through, even though Reliance is no paying any Interconnect charges that are charged by the end network. The calls made through Jio network are free because they are data calls and thus, Reliance is not paying the other network providers for the calls.
Airtel’s release also says “As a responsible organization, Airtel is committed to complying with all TRAI regulations and Interconnect Agreements in letter and spirit and will continue to be so in future as well.”, but also urges TRAI to examine the asymmetry caused by the incoming calls from Jio as this could lead to bad user experience.
