New Delhi, Sep 15 (PTI) Reliance Jio has slammed incumbent operators
Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone 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.