“Incumbent telcos complained that Jio’s plans were not IUC compliant”
Right from the moment Reliance Jio entered the Indian telecom industry, a war has spewn among the new entrant and existing telcos. One of the highlights of Jio’s service is that it offers unlimited free voice calls and will only charge for data once the free Welcome Offer expires.
Incumbent telecom operators have complained time and again that by offering services below the minimum interconnect rates of 14 paise a minute, Jio was violating the Telecom Tariff Order. But the government has cleared this confusion and has given a clean chit to Reliance Jio, saying the operator did not violate any rules. Speaking on the matter in the Parliament, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said:
“Since the guidelines/NIA for allocation of spectrum do not prescribe the rates at which services are to be provided to customers, the question of violation of guidelines for spectrum allocation does not arise.”
Telecom operators are required to pay 14 paise per minute for each outgoing call from their network to the operator on whose network the call is being made. This is known as Interconnection Usage Charge (IUC). The incumbent telcos complained that Jio’s plans were not IUC compliant. However, TRAI disregarded these claims in its letter to the operators last month. While this is a big win for Jio, the telecom operator is struggling to keep up with its growing customer base, and recently started capping voice calls at 30 minutes.
