Cisco and Reliance Jio team-up to expand Jio’s existing multi-terabit capacity all-IP services platform

Image Credit: Cisco

By IANS /  28 Feb 2017 , 18:09

Reliance Jio has announced a collaboration with networking giant Cisco to further expand Jios existing multi-terabit capacity with the first All-IP converged network in India. With this network, Jio will offer a combination of high-speed data, mobile video, VoLTE, digital commerce, media, cloud and payment services, Cisco said in a statement.

It is the first network of its kind globally with the fastest growth to 100 million broadband and VoLTE customers, reaching the milestone within six months of launch. “As part of our journey in fulfilling the aspirations of the nation to be a key transformational agent in digital adoption and Leadership, Cisco has been a great partner for in building this highly scalable cloud centric All-IP Digital Services Network Platform meeting unprecedented data growth,” Mathew Oommen, President of Reliance Jio, said in a statement.

A result of co-innovation around product and services between the two companies, the Jio All-IP digital platform is built on Cisco’s Open Network Architecture and Cloud Scale Networking technologies featuring IP/MPLS, spanning areas, including data centre, Wi-Fi, security and contact centre solutions. “We share the vision with Reliance Jio for an open, programmable infrastructure to simplify, automate and virtualise core network functions in order to digitise faster,” Yvette Kanouff, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider Business at Cisco, added.

Jio has more than 300,000 km of fibre and built India’s largest cloud data centre to build platforms for applications and vertical solutions. Cisco is building the simplified, automated and virtualized network platform of the future on industry-leading software, systems, silicon and services. This enables service providers, media and web companies worldwide to reduce costs, speed time-to-market, secure their networks and sustain profitable growth.

Disclaimer: Reliance Jio is owned by Reliance Industries, who also own Network18, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2.

Call drop issue: Parliamentary panel calls DoT, Trai and telcos for meeting to discuss call drops

Image Credit: Reuters

  05 Nov 2016 , 14:14

A Parliamentary panel has called telecom operators along with the Department of Telecom and sector regulator TRAI for a meeting on 10 November to discuss the raging call drop issue.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur, has called members of industry body COAI and Reliance Jio separately.

Reliance Jio, also a member of Cellular Operators Association of India, has blamed the industry body for promulgating views of mainly incumbent telecom operators – Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.

The subject of the meeting is ‘Issues related to quality of services and reported call drops’, according to a Lok Sabha notice. The panel will “hear the views of the representatives of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Reliance Jio, followed by meeting with representatives of DoT and The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).”

Call drops are rampant in the country with telecom operators of late making some effort to improve the situation by installing more telecom towers.
There has also been a tussle between Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom operators for not providing adequate interconnection facility to the Mukesh Ambani-led firm, leading to heavy call drops on its network.

Interconnection enables mobile users to make calls to customers of other networks and is, therefore, crucial for smooth functioning of mobile services.

TRAI has also recommended a penalty of Rs. 3,050 crores on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, holding them responsible for congestion on Reliance Jio network leading to call drops.

As per the quality of service rules, not more than five calls in 1,000 should fail due to network congestion. The recommendation followed complaints from Reliance Jio that over 75 percent of calls on its network are failing as incumbents were not giving sufficient points of interconnect that would help complete calls.

As per TRAI’s recommendation, the penalty for Airtel and Vodafone work out to about Rs. 1,050 crores each, while in case of Idea Cellular it comes to about Rs. 950 crores.

The regulator stopped short of recommending cancellation of their telecom licences by saying it may lead to “significant consumer inconvenience”.

PTI

Airtel to approach Trai to clear confusion over the proposed Rs 1,000 cr penalty

Image: Reuters

  27 Oct 2016 , 17:57

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel today said that it will approach government and telecom regulator Trai to clear the “confusion” that led to proposed penalty of over Rs 1,000 crore on it for not providing interconnection facility to Reliance JIO Infocomm.

“We are aware of proposed penalty. We believe there is confusion here. We will find way to go back to Trai and DoT. We are very confident that government will take a very objective position in the Herculean efforts we have put to resolve this issue,” Bharti Airtel MD and CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said during analyst call today.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has recommended the Department of Telecom to slap total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular for not resolving interconnection issue with Reliance Jio despite its direction that led to high call failure on latter’s network.

“It is part of our regulatory obligation that we provide connect. At the end of the day it is our job to fight in the market and serve customers better. So this is a non-issue,” Vittal said. He said that Jio announced on 31 August, that they would launch services on 5 September.

“There is lot of augmentation that we have done on points of interconnect. We have never seen that kind of augmentation that we have ever done in the past,” Vittal said. He said that the interconnection ports that Airtel has provided per million of customers is more that 2.5 times than of any other operator in India.

“The regulation allows you 90 days to all these augmentation. We have done it literally in 5 weeks,” Vittal said.

Talking about Airtel strategy to counter Reliance Jio’s free 4G mobile service, Vittal said that it is very difficult to offer free service in response but company will look at offering more bundled service like Jio is offering to counter threat from it.

“We believe that when something is free there is only way to compete is to go and give it for free. It is very difficult. In that sense we are watching that space. Free stuff also has impact on quality of network. We are keeping track on that,” Vittal said.

PTI

Disclaimer: Reliance Jio is owned by Reliance Industries, who also own Network18, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2.

TRAI fines Airtel, Vodafone, Idea for denial of interconnection to Jio

  22 Oct 2016 , 11:09

The Indian telecom regulator on Friday slapped heavy penalties on three telecom players — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular — for not providing sufficient points of interconnections (PoI) to Reliance Jio.

It also said the action of the three operators showed “ulterior motive to stifle competition”.

In three similar letters to the three players, the watchdog — Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) — said it has recommended a penal action of Rs 50 crore per licence service area (LSA) (except Jammu & Kashmir) where PoI congestion exceeded the allowable limit of 0.5 per cent as reported by Airtel/Vodafone/Idea Cellular through emails in September 23.

In the case of Airtel and Vodafone, the fines imposed were for 21 LSAs, amounting to Rs 1050 crore each while in the case of Idea, the fine was Rs 950 crore for