Reliance Jio on Wednesday refuted Bharti Airtel’s allegation that traffic generated by its users will “adversely impact” the Airtel's network, The Times of India reported. However, the Reliance Industries Limited-owned company also welcomed Airtel’s offer to increase the number of points of interconnection – which allow customers on one network to make calls to the subscribers of another service – to meet standards set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Jio, which has made regular requests to Airtel and other operators for an increased interconnection capacity, said that the lack of such points has led to a large number call drops for its users. “The situation has deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks, with over 75 calls falling out of every 100 call attempts,” the company said in a statement. It added that a total of 52 crore calls made by Jio users to Airtel, Idea Cellular Ltd. and Vodafone India Ltd. subscribers have failed, with more than 22 crore of those connections dropped on Airtel’s network alone.
Meanwhile, Moody’s Investor Service has said Jio will only manage to generate a positive Ebitdar (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation and restructuring) by 2019, Mint reported. The ratings agency further said that the company’s tariff plans will have a significant impact on RIL’s cash reserves and that the positive Ebitdar will be generated at a lower average revenue per user. Moody’s report has come ahead of the October 1 auction of 2,354.55 megahertz of spectrum by the Indian government.
Launched on September 1, the network will offer data services at rates as low as Rs 50 per GB, which RIL chairperson Mukesh Ambani said were the lowest data charges anywhere in the world. Voice calls will be offered free of cost to all Jio customers, and roaming will be free across India. According to him, Jio’s 4G network will cover 18,000 cities and towns, and more than two lakh villages. The company aims to cover 90% of India’s population by March 2017.
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