RCom, Aircel accuse Big 3 telcos of trying to poach subscribers through misleading campaigns

MUMBAI: Aircel and Reliance Communications have accused larger rivals Bharti AirtelBSE 0.75 %, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India of trying to poach subscribers through misleading campaigns that claimed the smaller telcos were shutting down their overall and enterprise voice businesses, respectively.

Both Aircel and RCom, struggling to stay afloat after attempts at merging their businesses fell through recently, have complained to the telecom department (DoT) and the regulator, seeking action against the three service providers.

RCom and its unit GCX, which runs the enterprise business, said Friday it has also served a ‘Cease & Desist’ notice on some rivals for running campaigns that say the Reliance Enterprise voice services will be discontinued. RCom didn’t name the rivals, but a company source , asking not to be named, said notices were issued against the three larger telcos.

RCom is shutting its retail wireless business by the end of this month. Aircel, which has recently defaulted on repayment of loans worth over Rs17,000 crore, is widely expected to shrink its operations to 8-9 stronger circles from 17 now, and eventually look to sell out to a larger telco.

“As regard to the complaint raised by Aircel, the… concerned have been advised to immediately stop discriminatory marketing practices, if any, and to submit the explanation on the matter,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a letter to Aircel. A copy of the Nov. 15 letter was seen by ET.

In its complaints to Trai and the DoT, Aircel, with some 89 million subscribers, had complained that Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone were violating regulations through false propaganda, telling subscribers that the telco will shut shop by November/December end and wooing them with attractive tariff offers. Aircel told Trai that the large telecom service providers were ‘resorting to illegal soliciting which is anti-competitive, unethical and violates the regulatory framework’, and has caused them ‘irreparable damage’.

A company spokesperson at India’s No. 1 telco said: “Airtel adheres to the highest standards of regulatory compliance and respects all its fellow operators.” Vodafone did not comment directly, but invited users to join its network.

Idea Cellular and Aircel did not respond to ET’s queries.

A senior executive with one of the top telcos that has received the Trai notice said the leading players have no role in such campaigns.

“The operator has no hand in this and dealers do this kind of rumor-mongering. This has been going on for the last 5 months and we have sent the regulator evidence that there are on ground activities that proclaim we are shutting shop as well,” the official said.

RCom-GCX on its part said the decision to close its consumer wireless business doesn’t affect its enterprise operations.

“The developments in our Consumer Wireless Business space will have no impact on any services provided by our India Enterprise and Global Cloud Xchange businesses,” RCOM-GCX said, adding that the company will continue to invest in its enterprise business, and expand its data centers and network infrastructure operations.

Soon after it was revealed that Rcom will shut its wireless business by November end, incumbents had launched a slew of media advertisements that offered attractive tariffs to the troubled telco’s subscribers wishing to port out.