Trai plan that has brought Reliance Jio, Vodafone-Idea and Airtel together

Telecom operators have collectively opposed any move to introduce differential licensing via unbundling of various layers, arguing that the proposal goes against regulatory consistency and would wreak unknown and unpredictable impact on investments made, leading to investor uncertainty. The operators Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Airtel, as well as industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have asserted that such unbundling is neither necessary nor desirable.
Debt-laden Vodafone Idea has told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that that there is an urgent need to address underlying issue of poor financial health rather than recommend or implement yet another licensing framework that would “create ambiguity and additional challenges”, and deter investments.
India’s largest telecom operator Reliance Jio — in its submission on Trai’s discussion paper ‘Enabling unbundling of different layers through differential licensing’ — has said that a converged licence for network and service layer offers clarity, and certainty to an operator making investment in the network. Any move to split the functions would be “regressive” and increase the sector’s compliance burden.