A tussle and a quick fall into a debt morass

The recent tariff order issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has triggered a fresh round of war of words between Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio and the other major service providers — Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, with the latter group alleging the sectoral regulator had distorted “the competitive landscape in favour of one operator … with deep pockets and monopolistic designs.”

While stating that “over the past 12-18 months, regulation after regulation put out by TRAI has ended up in distorting the competitive landscape in favour of one operator, while putting all other operators at a serious disadvantage,” COAI refrained from directly naming Reliance Jio as the beneficiary.

Even as the top three providers threatened to legally challenge the recent order, the regulator dismissed their allegation as “baseless”. The regulator further said that Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the operators’ body which counts all four operators as members, had “got into the habit of making such allegations and are free to move court.”

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India