Reliance Jio slams major telecom players over number portability issue

Major Indian telecom service providers Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone have been slammed by new market entrant Reliance Jio for allegedly refusing to help their mobile phone users port or switch to the new operator.

In a letter to TRAI Chairman R S Sharma, Reliance Jio said Bharti Airtel Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd are perpetrating "illegal and perverse actions" by refusing to enable the porting of mobile number connections.

"Considering that this is a clear and deliberate breach of the license conditions, TRAI must direct incumbent dominant operators to comply with their license terms and obligations ... failing which it should recommend cancellation of the respective licenses at the earliest," Jio wrote. 

The three firms did not offer any immediate comment on the story. "It is important to note that this is being done in blatant disregard to license terms and their obligations under the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009 and TRAI directions," Reliance Jio wrote on September 14.
Jio said it has been certified as Mobile Number Portability (MNP) compliant by the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring Cells of all service area and in this month it wrote to incumbents about commencing services. 

"Inspite of being under legal and contractual obligation to port the numbers after a valid request is made, the incumbent dominant operators have rejected all the requests made for porting between September 9 and September 12," it said giving data of port requests rejected. It said the rejections were in addition to "the rejection of MNP request of 4,919 corporate mobile numbers issued to employees and members of Reliance Industries Group by Bharti Airtel in August 2016. 

This was inspite of a confirmation from Bharti Airtel that there were no outstanding dues and that the MNP process could be completed." Reliance had last month asked all its employees to shun rival mobile phone operators and shift to Jio. "Almost all of these rejections have been made on the baseless and unsubstantiated ground of 'violation of contractual obligation'. 

The incumbent dominant operators have not even bothered to elaborate the contractual obligations that have been violated," it said. The "baseless and unsubstantiated" ground of violation of contractual obligation was being raised to unnecessarily harass customers and prevent them from availing the services of Jio, the company said. 

Jio asked TRAI to take serious cognizance of its complaint and intervene by taking strict action against the incumbent operators under the relevant provisions.