The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) has said that it is unable to “substantiate” the claims by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio on the latter’s need for additional inter-connect capacity. The industry body has insisted that its members have provided sufficient capacity to support a customer base several times more than that claimed currently by Reliance Jio. This exchange is the latest between the two sides on inter-connect capacity for newcomer Reliance Jio’s network testing purposes.“We have already provided Reliance Jio with enough inter-connect capacity to meet the demand of 15-20 million customers. We understand Reliance Jio presently has approximately 2-3 million customers using their network,” Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, COAI said.
However, in an e-mail response to The Hindu , Reliance Jio said, “Based on industry practice, 12,500 E1 ports are required for 22 million subscribers... As against this, the top three operators have released only 1,400 ports so far. It is grossly incorrect to suggest that sufficient number of ports have been given to support 15 million users.” The company added over 65 per cent of calls to networks of the top three operators are failing. “There are over 1.8 crore failed calls per day to these networks,” it said. It further added that the voice usage pattern of its test users is in line with the industry at 355 minutes per month.
Meanwhile, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman R.S. Sharma on Wednesday said it will respond to all communications from the industry on the matter.
‘Will respond’“If there is a letter which has come from the Telecom Department or the industry or any agency, we will certainly respond to it…If the issue comes under TRAI’s domain, we will definitely look into it,” Mr Sharma said on the sidelines of a Nasscom conference.
Asked about the need to frame network-testing norms for the sector, a demand made by cellular operators to the Telecom Department, Mr. Sharma said, “Whatever response I have to give, I will give to the required agency…If there is a need to come out with a consultation paper on any issue, I will do that... if there is no need, we will not do that.”
