Vodafone India to triple its points of interconnect with Jio

New Delhi, September 15 (IANS) Vodafone India on Thursday said it had decided to increase its points of interconnect (PoI) with Reliance Jio three-fold.   "Vodafone India has always provided the PoI to other operators for all their fair, reasonable and legitimate requirements and will continue to do so," a company statement here said.   "Following guidance from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and clarifications from Jio regarding its commercial launch, Vodafone India has decided to increase its POI with Jio three-fold and accordingly increase the capacity to connect. Vodafone is hopeful that all issues it has raised with TRAI and Jio will be duly considered and resolved at the earliest," the statement added.  

Earlier, Jio said that interconnection points provided by other operators were not sufficient.   "Based on industry practice, 12,500 E1 ports (interconnect points, with technical parameters) are required for 22 million subscribers, details of which have been provided to the members of Cellular Operators' Association of India," said a Reliance Industries statement on August 18.   "As against this, the top three operators have released only 1,400 ports so far," the company said.   A rough calculation suggests that Jio, as per the above-mentioned figures, would need a little over 8,500 ports given a subscriber base of 15 million.   Reliance Jio had officially launched its services on September 5.