Reliance Jio’s offers force TRAI to frame a rule. Here it is

Soon after Reliance Jio was launched commercially in September last year, top telecom players moved India’s telecom regulatory body, the TRAI, questioning a string of freebies being offered by the entrant.

As many telecom players alleged that Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio was trying to attract customers in the guise of freebies, the TRAI has now called for a consultation paper on framing rules for new mobile operators testing their services prior to full-fledged commercial launch.

The upcoming consultation paper is expected to address issues like the number of subscribers that can be on-boarded during the trial period by a new operator, as also the duration for such network and service testing. Other issues could be whether the services can be given free of charge or not.

The consultation paper on the issue is likely to be issued by May, two people familiar with the matter told PTI.

Reliance Jio, in turn, accused incumbent players like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone of not releasing sufficient interconnection ports even during its test run of services.

Jio subsequently launched commercial operations in early September but amassed sizable number of subscribers during the trial period.

The incumbent operators under the aegis of Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) had alleged that Reliance Jio's testing of network was an effort to bypass regulations. It had demanded that Telecom Department and TRAI should define terms and conditions of what constitutes a test mode for a telco.

Accordingly, a reference on the issue had been made by the Telecom Department to the regulator late last year. TRAI is now all sto start the work on the same.