Wondering why you cannot connect to a number through your Jio sim on the first go? Well, it turns out it isn’t Reliance’s fault after all. Rather, this will remind you of Mean Girls.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday prescribed reformatory activity against the nation’s main three telecoms, to the degree of Rs50 crore per circle, for purposely blocking calls produced using new administrator Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd’s (Jio) network.
WHAT IS THE FACADE ALL ABOUT?
TRAI drew up three separate letters for Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular Ltd and sent them to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). In the letters, the controller prescribes a Rs50 crore punishment on each of Vodafone’s 21 circles, Airtel’s 21 circles, and Idea’s 19 circles, where purposes of interconnect (PoI) clog surpassed the admissible furthest reaches of 0.5%.
It observed the telecoms to be in “non-compliance of the terms and conditions of licence and denial of interconnection to RJIL (Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd) appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer”.
Even though TRAI opted against the cancellation of license of these operators because of the vast amount of users depending on them, the aggregate punishment proposed to be imposed on the three telecoms is Rs 3,050 crore.
TRAI included that the demonstrations of the occupants are “against open intrigue”.
“We had issued show-cause notices to three companies for PoI (point of interconnect) congestion. They were not giving the PoIs to the new entrant. We have written to the DoT today recommending penal action against these telcos,” a top official at Trai said on condition of anonymity.
”We are continuously augmenting the PoIs provided to Reliance Jio and the pace of augmentation has been the fastest ever done by us. Further, we are in full compliance of the requirements of grade of service set by TRAI,” an Airtel spokesperson said.
WHAT ABOUT BUSINESS ETHICS?
I owned a Reliance sim once, and the connectivity was so bad that when Jio was released, it was almost unbelievable that it could be so good. And then came the bad reviews of calls not being connected on the first go.
Blocking Jio’s calls has put it in a bad light. Telecom operators like Airtel and Vodafone have increased the prices of their services and just added to customers’ woes. Shelling out 155 bucks for 1 GB Vodafone internet seems too much even for middle class. If they would incur losses because of Jio, why should the consumer suffer?
Think of the working class. Reliance has brought a kind of revolution in the telecom industries. A working class man can now afford to have the “luxury” of accessing internet on his phone. And the method that these telecoms have adopted is just unethical, to say the least. It breaches the trust of the customers too.
Ambani has reduced the status of phones from being a luxury to a common man’s tool. Now that their strategy did not work, maybe other telecom operators will slash the prices of their services and follow the footsteps of Reliance.
Well, we have come a long way from paying for incoming calls, and paying extravagantly if we clicked the internet button on the phone of our parents by mistake. (Only 90’s kids remember this)
TRAI’s vigilance in this whole case is laudable. They did not let these operators pass off with this deceitful effort to pull a good decision down.
Jio might have had its share of bad reviews, but the step that it is trying to take is not worth criticizing.
If you liked reading this, take a look at:
http://edtimes.in/2016/10/reliance-jio-has-tweaked-its-plans/
