The country's top telecom operators have declared war on Ringo, the cheap mobile-to-mobile calling app launched last week, which threatens to hit their under-pressure voice business by offering far lower rates at a time the industry is bracing for a bruising tariff battle with Reliance Jio Infocomm.
The big operators have blocked back-end support to the mobile-to-mobile calling service, forcing the app to suspend its offering.
"We are bringing to the attention of Trai what we believe are certain issues which we are contrary to DoT (department of telecommunications) licence requirements and Trai regulations. Issues such as masking of calling line identification, security violations, stipulations against reselling, etc, will need to be looked into by the regulator," said Rajan Mathews, director-general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
The company buys bulk minutes through aggregators that are further connected to carriers or carriers that sell wholesale minutes, and use call flow technology via a conference bridge based out of Mohali that connects both the caller and recipient of the call. The app allows users to call anyone across India including those who do not use the app.
Swiss brokerage Credit Suisse, in a note last week, said at 19 paise a minute, Ringo's calls are 69% cheaper than voice calls on the cellular network and 24% cheaper than calls over the Internet. "While we are already concerned on the impact from competition in traditional telco networks from Reliance Jio and OTT voice players, players like Ringo present a new threat to the sector," Credit Suisse said.