New Delhi: The fight between old telecom players and newcomer Reliance Jio has now reached the doorsteps of PM’s office. Existing operators' body COAI has sought meeting with the Prime Minister’s Office as well as the telecom minister on allegations of Trai “tilting the playing field” and newcomer Reliance Jio of bypassing regulations.
COAI has been up in arms against Trai’s consultation paper on call connect charges calling the move “unfair on incumbent operators”, and has questioned the regulator’s urgency in initiating the process of interconnect review, claiming that it “favours new entrants”. “The slew of consultation papers brought out by TRAI, the topics that are selected seem to be favouring new entrants, to the detriment of the existing mobile operators,” said Mr Mathews.
COAI has written on these allegations to the PMO and sought an appointment. COAI has members including Bharti Airtel, Idea and Vodafone. “We will meet Telecom minister Manoj Sinha and Secretary, DoT, Mr J.S. Deepak tomorrow. We will highlight the issue that we see Trai's opinion tilting the playing field,” COAI Director General Rajan S. Mathews said. He said that the association is yet to get a response from PMO. “DoT as a licensor is responsible for ensuring level playing field. In this context, we will also be taking up our concerns related to RJio,” said Mr Mathews.
