With the launch of Reliance Jio in the country, a war of words has been started between the country’s three largest phone companies and Reliance Jio. Reliance Jio the new entrant has already roiled the telecom industry of the country in the past few months. According to Mukesh Ambani, the COAI that is Cellular Operators Association of India is biased in favor of Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, and Bharti Airtel and currently called for the change in the functioning. After that, this Sunday the GSM industry body counterattacked in the strongly worded letter that accused Reliance Jio of a backdoor entry into the telecom sector. Reliance Jio demanded the comprehensive overhaul of Cellular Operators Association of India’s processes rules and regulations in the 23rd September letter to the Gopal Vittal who is the lobby group’s Chairman, also the Director-General Rajan Mathews and also to the CEO of Bharti Airtel.
War of IDO’s versus ‘BDO’
The letter suggested a committee that comprises three retired Supreme Court judges to be set up that can ensure the Cellular Operators Association of India’s governance codes and processes are according to the democratic principles of fairness, accountability, reasonableness, and transparency. According to Reliance Jio, all the rules and regulations of COAI were built to favor the three incumbent dominant operators that collectively own sixty-eight percent of total votes in the association’s executive council with their market position and total revenue. In a recent interview, Mukesh Ambani said that the structure of COAI is flawed and also criticized its functioning and pledge to democratize it. All these accusations made by the Reliance Jio were rejected by Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Group.
Clash over many issues
There are many issues that have caused the clash between Jio and COAI such as shooting off scathing letters, interconnect charges and points of interconnection (Pols) and releasing strong statements against each other. Reliance Jio has recently complained that millions of calls in its 4G network and Incumbent carriers are falling every day due to inadequate Po-Is released by the top three mobile operators in the country. Though Airtel’s Mittal has called for the end of these dialogues and hostilities but currently this does not seem to have worked. COAI has currently said that Reliance Jio is labeling well-performing and established operators of the country who have served the cause of digital India from a very long time. In spite of all this, Reliance Jio was welcomed by the COAI even though it entered the sector as the backdoor operator.