Jio, Airtel differ on use of USO Fund for tower fiberisation

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

telecom operators — Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel — have divergent views on the use of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Market leader Jio believes that, at present, the cash reserve is being used to fiberise the towers of competitors which «should not happen», while second-ranked Airtel wants the Centre to now start using the fund to fiberise towers. "...Let it [USOF] remain with the operators.

Let them fiberise their own towers instead of one operator funding the towers of others. That should not happen," said Ravi Gandhi, chief regulatory officer, Jio. «Otherwise, four operators contribute to the fund but the fibre is being built for others.

So, effectively, the two are funding their competitors. That should not occur,» he said, without specifying the names of telcos. USOF is an approximately ₹65,000-crore cash reserve that is meant to provide quality and affordable mobile and broadband services in the rural and remote regions of the country.

Gandhi pointed out that just Right of Way (RoW) accounts for 80-90% of the cost that goes into fibre deployments. «So that's where I think probably we need to apply our mind instead of applying your mind into the utilisation of the USO fund,» Gandhi said. On the other hand, Rahul Vatts, chief regulatory officer at Airtel, highlighted that the Centre should now start leveraging USOF for the fiberisation of towers.

«We have tried to use BharatNet. Our experiences have not been very good. The availability has not been great for us.

We both end up putting up our infrastructure. I think the government needs to see how they best utilise the funds available. This is why it is important that the USOF money now starts getting used for fiberisation of towers,» Vatts said.