Reliance Jio, Idea spar over interconnect points

The war of words over point of interconnects (PoIs) between Reliance Jio and incumbent operators continued on Friday with the Mukesh Ambani firm saying 40 million calls were failing everyday between it and Idea, while Jio claimed that the proposed augmentation by Idea was inadequate.

Idea said it would further enhance capacity for Jio in both access and long-distance interconnection by 230 per cent. Idea said it has now provisioned 1,865 ports for access, from 565 earlier — a 230 per cent increase in capacity — and simultaneously the long-distance capacity was also being expanded by 50 per cent.

“With this huge capacity expansion, over 2,100 ports will now be available for traffic between Idea and Jio, allowing sufficient buffer for the future,” Idea said.

However, Jio said the proposed augmentation by Idea increased capacity by only 34 per cent, which was grossly inadequate. Jio said the current number of interconnects between it and Idea for access was 725 and this was proposed to be augmented by 1000. For long distance, the current interconnects were 207, which would be increased to 250, thereby resulting in 21 per cent rise. So the average increase in capacity was 34 per cent, less than 40 per cent of the initial firm demand placed by it.

Jio said it failed to understand how the QoS parameters would be met with the proposed augmentation by Idea. “The response by Idea to the severe quality of service issues faced between the Idea and Jio networks is disappointing and displays lack of intent on Idea’s part to resolve this critical issue,” Jio said.

Jio said more than 750 calls per 1,000 were failing a day between Idea and Jio networks, which translates to 40 million calls failing per day. Over 120 million calls fail daily between Jio and the networks of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea.

Jio said only 50 new E1s have been operationalised by Idea in the last 10 days as a result of which call failure rate has been increasing drastically.

Also, Jio termed statements by incumbents on PoIs as disillusioning as they were not doing any favour. “All operators are obligated as per licence conditions to provide interconnection such that QoS parameters are met. It is a licence obligation and an obligation towards the Indian customers. No favours are being made towards Jio by any of the operators,” Jio added.

IDEA Cellular Limited