Telco wars: govt to work without bias, says minister

 Amidst war of words between existing telecom firms and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Friday said that the government will continue to “work without any bias or discrimination” against anyone.

“The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) delegation came to meet me and they have expressed some concerns. I told them that the government does not work with bias... Our work is not to stop anyone or allow anyone... For us, consumer is most important,” Sinha said.

“The telecom sector’s history has been glorious and it has been a success story, and the industry will continue to grow in the future as well. The government will work without any bias or discrimination,” he added.

Earlier in the day, COAI Chairman Gopal Vittal (MD and CEO — India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel), Vice Chairman Sunil Sood (MD and CEO — Vodafone India) and Himanshu Kapania, MD of Idea Cellular and COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews met the minister.

Emerging out of the meeting, Mathews said, “The minister and the Telecom Secretary J S Deepak highlighted that it is not good for the industry to be seen fighting with the regulator. We understand the point going forward and this is not the way we would like to resolve it.”

He added that the positive message from the government is that they are keen to settle the issue.

COAI, in which incumbent telecom operators including Airtel, Idea and Vadafone members have accused Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) of being biased and adopting “unfair” policies to favour new entrants, including Reliance Jio.

It has also sought the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the issue, and questioned the regulator’s urgency in initiating the process of interconnect review, claiming that it “favours new entrants” and discriminates against the existing mobile operators.

The move comes at a time when allegations are flowing thick and fast between cellular operators and RJio, with COAI terming the latter’s testing of network as bypass of regulations, and RJio denied it and said the charge is a bid to block its full rollout.

“We asked the government to clarify the grey areas of testing (RJio’s trial connections comprise 1.5 million users), how long the testing can last, etc,” Mathews said.

Mathews said that the Department of Telecom has assured existing operators that it will have a “conversation” with the telecom regulator “to clarify matters such as the requirements of testing, the duration of tests, and the protocol to be followed” and will try to resolve it.

Asked if operators would be willing to have a dialogue with the regulator on the outstanding issues, he said, “Yes. We will continue to respond to the discussion papers, to have a dialogue with TRAI, and to engage with them.”