Airtel provides more interconnection points, Jio welcomes it

New Delhi, Nov 3: Bharti Airtel on Thursday said it has provided over 7,000 additional points of interconnect (PoIs) to Reliance Jio, taking the total number of those provided to over 17,000. While welcoming the step, Jio said over 4.6 crore calls are still failing everyday between the two operators' networks. "This capacity is sufficient to serve over 75 million customers, based on the forecast provided by Jio to Airtel. This will also ensure that the quality of service (QoS) is maintained and the customers are not inconvenienced," an Airtel statement said. "There are no network related issues that RJIL (Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited) has faced beyond the acute shortage of POIs provided by Airtel and other incumbent operators," said RJIL in a statement. "It may be noted that there are no failures in on-net calls, while over 4.6 crore calls are still failing every day between Jio and Airtel," it added. "Airtel has been providing PoIs to Jio, even before the commencement of Jio's commercial operations. Following the commercial launch of services by Jio on September 5, 2016, Airtel has released PoIs at a staggering pace, well ahead of its bilateral and regulatory obligations," Airtel said. "As a matter of fact the number of PoIs provided by Airtel to Jio is more than 2.5 times the number provided to an existing operator with a comparable subscriber base," it added. "RJIL hopes that this situation will improve now that Airtel has consented to offering additional POIs. However, Airtel has continued to violate the Interconnection Agreement by offering one-way E1s as against both-way E1s as provided for in the Agreement, which would have resulted in much more efficient utilization of interconnection resources," RJIL said. The Indian telecom regulator on October 21 slapped heavy penalties on three telecom players -- Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- for not providing sufficient PoIs to Reliance Jio. It also said the action of the three operators showed "ulterior motive to stifle competition".