The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today asked incumbent service providers and new entrant Reliance Jio to settle their interconnection dispute amongst themselves.

At a meeting where representatives of both sides met the regulator, the latter told attendees that the matter of points of interconnection (PoI) should first be settled bilaterally, failing which an adjudicator be appointed.

For now, both parties have agreed to try and resolve their issues bilaterally.

Telecom companies sign agreements with each other under which each company is mandatorily obliged to provide points of interconnection, which facilitate carriage of a call from one operator to another. In lieu, the telco whose subscribers make the call pays the other operator 14 paise per minute for allowing the call to go through.

Rajan Mathews, Director-General of industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), told CNBC-TV18 that telecom firms have complained about the volume of calls that are being made to Jio's users to other networks, thanks to the company offering free calls, which they say congests their infrastructure.

He added that telcos also brought up a number of other issues with respect to Jio's service, besides PoI. "We have highlighted a number of principal issues. The asymmetry of call traffic originating from Jio's network, the number of PoIs needed, the nature of freebies that is giving and whether its preview launch should be considered launch of commercial services," he said.

According to Mathews, the true cost of facilitating interconnection in the case of Reliance Jio works out to about 30 paise, given the "asymmetrical" nature of volumes generating from it. "If you are giving away free calls, is it truly representative of the volume or capacity you require?" heasked.

Mathews also said COAI representatives were kept out of the meeting at the behest of Reliance Jio, even as officials of individual telecom companies attended.

Reliance Jio claims that because other operators have not given it enough PoIs, its users are facing call drops and network issues while making calls to subscribers of other companies.

Nitin Soni of Fitch Ratings said it is incumbent on telecom operators to provide adequate PoIs to other players. "They are getting revenues in lieu of providing infrastructure".