Parliamentary panel meets telco body, R-Jio

Members of a parliamentary panel on Thursday met officials from Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and newcomer Reliance Jio over call drops and call failures, and asked about measures taken by the operators to improve quality of telephony services in the country.

Members of parliamentary standing committee on information technology interacted with officials from Reliance Jio and COAI separately, and asked about call drops and call failures due to congestion at points of interconnect.

While COAI and Reliance Jio refused to divulge details of the meetings, both are said to have made presentations to the panel, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party's Anurag Thakur.

According to sources, members of the panel also sought to know the service quality challenges arising out of free calls being offered by the new entrant, and how these issues are being sorted.

Sources said the committee will also call other operators for a holistic view on the call drop and service quality issue, before coming out with its recommendations.

Earlier this week, COAI urged the committee to also hear out incumbent operators including Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, and Vodafone for a fairer assessment of the situation.

COAI had said many of the issues fell within the ambit of bilateral commercial agreement and were best explained by individual licensees.