Airtel reduced its outgoing phone call ringing time for only 25 seconds before getting disconnected for Bharti Airtel users:
This is a quid pro quo move by Airtel to reduce the ringing time to 25 seconds ,contest against its rival, Reliance Jio. Bharti Airtel, better known as Airtel is currently second ranked telecommunication service provider by revenue in India.
Airtel has already sent a letter to Trai explaining why they reduced the time, on 28 September. Mint has already reviewed a copy of the letter. Airtel wrote that “In the absence of any direction from Trai and to prevent further loss of IUC (interconnect usage charge), we are left with no other option than to reduce the timer in our network as well.”
pic source: google
Currently, the IUC (Interconnection Usage Charges) is 6 paise a minute and the IUC charge is imposed by the mobile networks while handling incoming calls from other networks especially their rival network.
Airtel stated that once a customer receives a missed call, they tend to call back the originating operator’s network and by converting such outgoing calls to incoming, a large operator was getting IUC from other operators. And apart from this they were also trying to diminish the imbalance of traffic artificially.
Response from Jio
An official from Jio responded to this news by saying, “Incumbent operators, to hide their inefficiencies, are blaming it on IUC. It is they who are gaming the IUC regime by charging their 2G/ 3G customers high voice tariffs. Users from incumbents network who are paying ₹1.5/min for calls request Jio users to make a free voice call to them by giving a missed call, which is as high as 25-30%. Globally, most operators have an average ringing time of only 15-20 seconds, and 25 seconds ringing time on Jio network is in line with global practice.”
The reason for this response was because last week Airtel, without naming Jio said that they are gaming the interconnect usage system by reducing its outgoing call ringing time.
Written By: The World Women News Team
