Reliance Jio blames Airtel for most call drops

Reliance Jio added that the resultant call failure rates continue to be of the order of 175 calls failing out of every 1,000 calls from Jio to Airtel network when the quality of service rules mandate that no more than 5 calls out of every 1,000 calls can fail. Less

MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm on Monday said its customers are still facing huge call failure issues as incumbent operators are yet to release adequate points of interconnection (PoI), with market leader Bharti Airtel the worst offender.

"The POI capacity provided by these operators is still way below requirement and is falling short of the customer addition pace of Jio, resulting in quality of service issues for Indian customers," Jio said in the earnings statement of parent Reliance Industries.

Jio added that the resultant call failure rates continue to be of the order of 175 calls failing out of every 1,000 calls from Jio to Airtel network when the quality of service rules mandate that no more than 5 calls out of every 1,000 calls can fail.

The telco also took a jibe against the largest telco saying that while Jio's network saw a 2-3% rate of call failure with Vodafone and Idea, it has seen 16-17% calls fail with Airtel.

"Indian customers are still being denied the benefits of superior voice technology on Jio's state-of-the-art network," Jio added.

The Mukesh Ambani-led firm is targeting 100 million customers at the earliest which many widely believe to be by March end. Within four months of the launch, it has signed up 72.4 million subscribers on its 4G network.

Reliance Jio has previously too accused the top three incumbents of not releasing adequate PoIs which, it alleges, has resulted in severe call failures. Following the development, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India imposed a fine of Rs 3,050 crore on the top three telcos.

Vodafone India, the country's No 2 telco, has challenged Trai's recommendation in the Delhi High Court.