Trai calls telcos' meet to discuss allegations against Jio

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has called a meeting with telecom operators on Friday to address complaints by the incumbents that Reliance Jio has been officering voice calls for free.

The incumbents had written to the regulator saying that Jio’s voice tariffs were in violation of the 30th amendment to the Telecommunication Tariff Order. The 2004 amendment states that tariffs should be non-predatory, non-discrimatory and IUC compliant.

The incumbents, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, had said if the interconnect usage charge (IUC) was 14 paisa per call, the tariff should be more than that. Jio had already announced that all the voice calls on its network would always be free.

“I have called for a meeting on Friday… Some telecom service companies had written to us alleging that Jio has violated some (tariff ) order. For that they had sought a meeting,” Trai Chairman R S Sharma said during an interactive session at Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci).