Telcos turn to Trai on network issue at Navi Mumbai Airport

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea have approached the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) against the operator of the new Navi Mumbai international airport and the indoor connectivity vendor, who they alleged are creating an excluding, monopolistic in-building telecom arrangement at a public airport, impacting travellers.

The telcos, through industry body, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), asked TRAI chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti to lay down and enforce a cost-based pricing framework and appropriate price ceilings for in-building telecom infrastructure in scenarios where a single entity has exclusive control over connectivity at public or captive locations such as airports, metro stations, and similar premises.

COAI also asked the sector regulator to recommend suitable directions to ensure public entities grant the necessary right-of-way (RoW) permissions to operators on a non-discriminatory basis.


Alternatively, it asked TRAI to mandate that shared infrastructure in such locations be provided strictly on regulated, transparent, and cost-oriented terms.

"TRAI's intervention is essential to address this emerging structural issue, which, if left unregulated, has the potential to be replicated across various public places/infrastructure projects, thereby undermining competition and consumer experience," COAI said in a letter sent Tuesday, a copy of which was seen by ET.

In the letter, COAI said Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) has mandated that all telcos must compulsorily use a network deployed by the airport operator or its affiliates on terms unilaterally determined by them and at chargers which the companies alleged are commercially unviable.

"It has been conveyed to our members that NMIAL is seeking payments of approximately ₹92 lakh per month per operator, aggregating to nearly ₹44 crore per annum for four mobile operators," wrote COAI in the letter. "These charges are grossly disproportionate, bear no rational nexus to the underlying cost of related infrastructure, and significantly exceed the capital and operating expenditure ordinarily required for deployment of an independent IBS network."