Airtel, Vodafone, Idea & Jio spar over initial connect

KOLKATA: Older carriers Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, and 4G newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm are sparring yet again, this time over a workable timeline within which a telco needs to provide ports for initial interconnection and augmentation.

In its suggested draft amendments to the rules around provision of interconnect points (PoIs), the telecom regulator has increased the timeframe to 42 working days from the earlier 21working days and sought industry feedback.

The older carriers, however, feel the 42 working days timeline for initial interconnection is too stringent since bulk of the related gear needs to be imported, posing delivery challenges, and accordingly needs to revise upwards to 60-90 days.


Mukesh Ambani-controlled Jio, however, is strongly opposed to even Trai’s suggested revision to 42 working days, contending that such easing of provisioning rules could increase congestion at interconnect points, leading to call failures and customer inconvenience.

So much so, Jio wants the regulator to retain its original 21working days deadline for a telco to provide initial interconnection to another.

The rules around provisioning of PoIs — needed to complete calls — remain a highly contentious issue that had triggered an ugly spat between the country’s older carriers and new entrant, Jio. At present, interconnect pacts are decided mutually among carriers, and the regulator intervenes only in case of complaints.

Jio, which had started its 4G launch by offering free voice and data services, had complained earlier to Trai that the older carriers were not providing it adequate PoIs, resulting in call failures. The incumbents had denied its allegations, and said Jio’s free calls, on the contrary, had unleased a tsunami of traffic that had clogged their networks and undermined the quality of mobile services.

“We propose a revised timeline of 60 working days for augmentation and provisioning of PoIs, given the current dependency on importing the equipment, and the time involved from ordering till delivery ranges from 6-8 weeks, and takes a further 6-7 weeks to install and test,” Bharti Airtel said in its submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s draft amendments to the rules around provisioning of PoIs.

Kumar Birla-led Idea has gone a step further, urging Trai to extend the timeline to 90-days, arguing that “42 working days is extremely stringent” to complete the process of augmenting ports (including acceptance testing) as it involves “multiple steps such as building of transmission media on equipment, testing of such media, placement of test calls besides various technical/commercial procurement”.

But in its submission to the regulator, Jio is strongly opposed to even Trai’s revised suggested timeline of 42 working days, warning it will “substantially increase the risk of PoI congestion and call failures, which would leave “precariously low headroom for (any) sudden growth in traffic, especially for a new entrant, causing inconvenience to customers”.

Older carriers and Jio are also at loggerheads over Trai’s proposed changes in PoI provisioning terms and conditions like the one where a telco can ask another for extra ports in case projected capacity utilisation is likely to exceed 85% over a 60-day span. Trai has suggested that such a request be based on the traffic a telco gets two months before placing the request such that the additional ports bring down capacity utilisation to less than 75% after two months.

Airtel, in its submission to Trai, has suggested that a request for additional ports be made by a telco if its projected capacity utilisation is likely to exceed 90% (instead of 85%), and that the provisioning of such additional ports eventually brings down capacity utilisation to 80% after two months.