Telecom operators' body writes to PMO over Jio

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has written to RIL asking it to contact TRAI and try and solve the matter.Last week, at its 42nd AGM, Reliance Industries launched ambitious plans for Jio under which it offered free services from September 5 till December 31.Below is the verbatim transcript of Rajan Mathews' interview to Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: Can you tell us what the content of the letters were this time around and what seems to be the big issue that many of these incumbents have like Bharti and Idea?A: The letters sent to the Prime Minister (PM) were sent to the DoT and the TRAI for their action and information. The letters talk about the volume of traffic. The first letter says that because of the inordinate traffic volumes coming in from RIL side of the equation, incumbent operators have represented that it puts severe strain on their network and severe strain financially because of the disparity between the TRAI determined cost and the actual cost of delivering those calls.The second letter asks for clarification with regards to whether in fact RIL is in commercial service as represented that is a call that TRAI has to make. If RIL is in commercial services, obviously the question is how does a free service which extends beyond 90 days, how is that to be handled. Those are questions that the regulator needs to clarify before the incumbents will be able to give the required interconnect.Latha: Mukesh Ambani has spoken to several newspapers and I just want to quote what he has said with respect to this issue. One quote is that, "I have utmost regard and appreciation for the likes of Airtel, Vodafone, Idea etc. These are great companies, they have their own reputation to protect, I am confident they won't violate the law". The other quote is, "You are supposed to augment interconnect when the current capacity utilisation reaches 70 percent, you cannot use excuses that someone is doing promotions. Capacity requirement has gone up etc, these are not acceptable excuses".A: Clearly, that is RIL's representation and we respect Ambani's point of view on that. The other incumbent operators have also made representation. I understand that the DoT has written to RIL asking them to contact TRAI and have TRAI help resolve the matter because interconnect is an issue between two commercial entities.So I believe the RIL should contact TRAI and try and help resolve the matter. All of the incumbent operators have represented that they intend to fully comply with the rules and regulations of TRAI as well as the license conditions. As far as ambiguity -- that is where TRAI needs to resolve the issue between the two parties.Latha: Have you asked TRAI? Have they offered a meeting between the legacy operators, incumbent operators and Rel Jio? Is there any meeting in the offing?A: We understand the letter was sent yesterday. So hopefully the TRAI will follow up on that letter. The conversation has been going on as we understand between the TRAI and DoT. So we will wait to see how TRAI moves forward on trying to resolve this between the various operators.(Disclosure: RIL, which owns Reliance Jio, also owns Network18 and moneycontrol.com).