Airtel well prepared to face Jio challenge, says Sunil Mittal

The telecom industry may have been shaken by Reliance Jio's entry but Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal says the firm is well placed to take on the Mukesh Ambani company on all frontiers.

In an interview with The Economic Times, Mittal said Airtel will compete with Jio backed by its strong execution over the years, customer focus and spectrum footprint.

The Mukesh Ambani-backed telco launched its commercial operations on September 5, 2016.

On contentious issues such as points of interconnection (POIs) and mobile number portability, Mittal said they would be resolved in the next few weeks.

These issues can be solved through talks and Airtel is eager to settle them, Mittal told ET.

Airtel has never faced any issues with new operators in the past and will release POIs to Jio as required, without creating any hurdles.

On Reliance Jio's free voice and data tariffs, Mittal said he was not surprised. Going ahead, bundled tariff plans will be the norms of the industry with focus on protecting average revenue per user.

Reliance Jio has accused Bharti Airtel of providing less than one-fourth of the Interconnection points to complete calls. In reply, Sunil Mittal's firm hit back by saying the newcomer was in fact facing technical problems.

Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has said PoIs being provided to enable its users to complete call on existing operators network were "substantially less". It said two crore calls fail daily as the largest telecom operator dilly dallies on adequate points of interconnection.