New entrant Reliance Jio is abusing “dominant position” by involving in predatory pricing practices through its free promotional services, Airtel has said in a counter complaint with the competition commission of India (CCI), according to this ET report. It added that Jio is a dominant player in the telecom industry since “it’s a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), which is the largest enterprise in India in terms of size, revenues, assets, and value.” Airtel was responding to Jio’s complaint in November with the CCI, wherein the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco alleged that Bharti Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone have formed a cartel to restrict its operations by denying interconnection points. At that time Airtel and Vodafone said that it was yet to receive any official communication regarding the complaint and rejected Jio’s allegations. MediaNama has written to both Reliance and Airtel for more details and will update the story once they respond. According to the report, Airtel has termed Reliance's free services as “predatory”, shaped in a tactical manner to “eliminate competition” and eventually create a monopoly situation in the market. “Once Jio obtains higher market share, it would likely increase costs or even charge for voice calls since competition will be limited and the customer will be left with lesser number of service providers to choose from,” it added. However, Jio has responded to the allegations stating that all tariff plans offered by it is in compliance with existing regulations and that telecom regulator TRAI had approved the tariff packs. "India’s…
