India wants a data revolution, but its telcos can’t stop brawling

Telcos in India can’t stop fighting. Photo credit: Deviantart.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India is caught in a curious battle this week.

While the PM has made it his business to digitize the country, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made many efforts to better India’s shoddy internet and telecoms connectivity, the telcos themselves can’t seem to stop fighting.

First, here’s the background: India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani is preparing for this year’s commercial launch of Reliance Jio, the nation’s biggest 4G broadband network. It’s expected to bring about a data revolution in the world’s second largest smartphone market.

See: India’s on the cusp of a data revolution, and Samsung just latched onto it

Except, as launch day draws closer, ruling telecom companies have gone up in arms against the new entrant. The companies are alleging that TRAI issued an unusually large number of discussion papers over the past few months to review key policy measures favoring a new entrant – which is Reliance Jio. Top telcos in the country include Vodafone, Idea Cellular, and market leader Bharti Airtel.

Good quality data services is an absolute must for a startup economy thriving on apps and content generation.

The telcos have also accused Reliance Jio of trying to pass off unfair pricing and providing full-fledged services disguised as trials.

“This is no test. This is the provisioning of full-blown and full-fledged services masquerading as tests, which bypass regulations and can potentially game policy features like the IUC (interconnection usage charge) regime, non-predatory pricing, fair competition etc,” the director general of COAI, which represents top telcos in the country, said in a letter to the telecom secretary, according to the Economic Times.

Reliance Jio’s Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian.

Jio, predictably, has denied those accusations.

The company said the claims were “malicious, unfounded, ill-informed, and frivolous” and have been made with “ulterior motive” of promoting vested interests of incumbent operators.

There are also insinuations of favoritism by the Modi government, seeing as Jio is headed by Mukesh Ambani, easily among the most powerful businessmen in the country today.