Jio Writes To TRAI, Accuses Airtel & Vodafone Of Unethical MNP Practices

Jio recently wrote a letter to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) accusing Airtel and Vodafone of unethical practices. According to Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India are using the ongoing farmers' protest in order to mislead their customers.

In the letter, Jio has claimed that their rival networks have spread rumors about Jio benefitting from the new farm laws. In the light of farmers’ struggles and protests, people now want to shift away from Jio’s network as an attempt to stand in solidarity with the farmers.

"They are inciting the public by making preposterous claims that migrating Jio mobile numbers to their networks would be an act of support to farmers' protests," read the letter.

Jio has apparently received many requests from its customers wanting to leave the network, although they do not have any complaints about the network’s services.

Jio has requested TRAI to take necessary actions against Vodafone and Airtel as they are running an unethical MNP (mobile number portability) campaign and trying to gain out of the ongoing Farmers protests.

"We submit that despite the above submissions, these companies continue to remain directly/indirectly involved in supporting and furthering the insinuations and false and frivolous rumors of Reliance being an undue beneficiary of the farm laws, for unethical pecuniary benefits in the form of induced porting of RJIL customers," continued the letter dated 10^th December.

It was said that this new letter was a continuation of their 28^th September letter, "highlighting the unethical and anti-competitive MNP (mobile number portability) campaign being run by Airtel and VIL to capitalise on the ongoing farmer protests in northern parts of the country".

Responding to these claims, Airtel has finally given their answer. In a recently released statement, the network has said that, "Airtel has operated in the telecom industry for 25 years. During this period, we have competed hard in the market place and striven to serve our customers with excellence. At the same time, we take great pride in treating our competitors and partners with respect."

They further added that, "Despite being provoked by some competitors who we know will go to any length to make baseless allegations, adopt bullying tactics and use intimidatory behavior, we have always conducted our business with character and transparency; something that we are deeply proud of and known for. The current complaint therefore deserves to be dismissed and thrown out with the contempt that it deserves. It is in poor taste and is scurrilous, to say the least.”

Even Vodafone Idea gave their answer saying that their network always believed in working ethically. The allegations made by Jio are baseless and yet another poor attempt at harming their image.