Airtel, Idea and Vodafone blocking number portability says Reliance Jio

Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone has been blocking mobile number portability (MNP) facility for their subscribers who wish to subscribe to Reliance Jio services on baseless and unsubstantiated grounds.

This is another example of disregard of license terms and their obligations under the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009 ("MNP Regulations") and TRAI directions says Reliance Jio.

This is again an anti-competitive move aimed at stifling a new operator, denying the Indian customers the benefit of choice of service provider and this is against public interest and fair play.

On the other hand, Reliance Jio Infocomm welcomes the decision of Vodafone India of providing more points of interconnection ("POI") to it however, the quantum of PoIs proposed to be released by Vodafone is substantially less than the requirement estimated based on transparent workings shared with Vodafone.

RJIL has been writing regularly to Vodafone regarding its requirement for interconnection capacity over the last few months. The situation has deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks, with over 80 calls failing out of every 100 call attempts. In the last 10 days alone, over 15 crore Reliance Jio calls have failed on the Vodafone network.

Indian customers have not been able to enjoy RJIL's free voice offer as a result of such anti-competitive behavior of incumbent operators.

Reliance Jio has been raising the issue of insufficient PoIs as anti-competitive aimed at hindering the entry of a new operator. Such hurdles result in poor experience for RJIL customers who are trying to make calls to incumbent operators' networks.

It is unfortunate that TRAI's intervention was required for Vodafone to resume augmentation of PoIs as admitted in its press release. Vodafone ought to have augmented PoIs by itself in compliance with its license terms.