Airtel today announced that it will provide additional PoIs (Point of Interconnect) to Jio, following its bilateral discussions with Reliance Jio. “Airtel is a responsible organization committed to complying with the regulations and the Interconnect Agreements in letter and spirit and will continue to be so,” said the company.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recently told India’s leading telecom providers and Reliance Jio Infocomm to resolve the contentious interconnect issues among themselves and also said that it would intervene if the quality of service declines and consumers suffer.
Airtel recently extended an invitation to Jio to discuss its requirement of additional PoI. Airtel said that it has been providing PoIs to Jio, well ahead of the commencement of its commercial operations.
“With the latest augmentation, the total number of PoIs will become 3 times the present number of PoIs. Based on the current traffic pattern with all other operators, this capacity is sufficient to serve over 15 million customers, which is significantly higher than Jio’s existing customer base,” said Airtel.
Since Jio is offering free calls till December 31st without any fee, as a part of its welcome offer, Airtel is asking TRAI to look into the issue of asymmetric traffic and ensure that massive volumes of free calls terminating on Airtel’s network do not adversely impact its network. Airtel might also expect higher termination charge since they have added more PoIs.