CHENNAI: The war of words between Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio kicked off by the latter’s decision to charge the 6p interconnect usage charge (IUC) for voice calls to non-Jio numbers reached the corridors of India Mobile Congress 2019 on Tuesday.
The day saw executives from Jio and Airtel taking digs at their respective rival’s stance on the issue during interactions with the media.
Airtel MD and CEO for India and South Asia, Gopal Vittal, told reporters on the sidelines of the event that while tariffs were “unsustainable” and “had to go up”, RJio’s move to charge the 6p per minute charge went against industry practice and had nothing to do with low tariffs.
“IUC has nothing to do with tariff. It is a clearing house… for the cost of carrying calls. It is a bilateral thing settled among carriers and over the last 20 years, IUC has always been absorbed,” he noted.
IUC charges are paid by a telecom service provider for completing calls made by its subscribers to a rival network.
The cost set by TRAI is 6 paise per minute and RJio is a net payer, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea are net receivers of IUC charges.
RJio president for network, global strategy and service development, Mathew Oommen, said that other firms had not invested in new technologies and that IUC, which is designed for old technology networks, was an example.
“IUC cannot be seen as a mechanism to offset for the inefficiencies they have,” Oommen said.