Airtel and Vodafone Says Reliance Jio’s Test Users Should Not Be Allowed to Enjoy Commercial Services

India’s leading telecom operators, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India at an open house discussion yesterday urged that Reliance Jio should not offer commercial telecom services to the users who joined the network in the testing phase.

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Airtel and Vodafone raised a voice saying that the test users should not be allowed to use commercial services, and they should be made ineligible for the MNP services as well. However, a Jio responded saying the moves such as will “disrupt a seamless move from trials to commercial operations.”

Ravi Gandhi, Bharti Airtel’s chief regulatory officer at the same meeting said that test users should not be allowed to migrate to commercial services. “There should not be subscriber acquisition in the name of testing, and there should be a time-limit for a network trial service,” Gandhi said.

However, a Jio executive urged that telcos should be allowed to enrol test users without any restriction, so that, the operators can seamlessly migrate the test users after a commercial launch of the service reports ETTelecom.

“As the operator is in compliance with necessary criteria and lawful interception, there is no need to put a restriction that would have an adverse impact and such a restriction would be counter-productive and operators should be given a free hand,” the Jio executive said.

Reliance Jio launched its commercial operations in September 2016. Before the commercial roll out, the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom operator conducted network testing for select users with select smartphones. The brand also gave away free Jio SIM cards for the Reliance Industries (RIL) employees and their families.