Telcos at war: COAI's Rajan Mathews rules out apology to Reliance Jio

COAI's director general Rajan Mathews on Sunday ruled out tendering an apology to Reliance Jio over the industry body's recent allegations that the orders of sector regulator Trai have been favouring the newcomer. "There is no question of apologising to Jio as there is no worthy reason to do so, as the COAI's differences are with Trai's order not anything with any specific operator," Mathews told PTI. COAI had on Saturday rebutted Jio's verbal offensive against it, saying that was duty-bound as an association to raise concerns related to growth of the sector. The association had also said "differences" are with orders of regulator Trai, not a specific operator. Last week, Reliance Jio termed COAI's recent allegations as "defamatory" and "malicious", which indicated that orders by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) are favouring the new operator. Jio had also demanded that both Cellular Operators Association of India and Mathews tender public apology within 48 hours over industry body's allegations dated February 20, 2018. The full-blown war of words erupted in the sector after COAI alleged that Trai's regulations, including its rules and definition of predatory pricing, had distorted the market. COAI had also alleged that the orders appeared "to be strengthening the ambitions of one particular operator with deep pockets and monopolistic designs at the expense of other operators" although it did not name Reliance Jio, which has hit the incumbent operators hard by its aggressive pricing of mobile services, especially data tariffs.

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