Airtel violating license rules to sell Apple Watch 3: Jio
What's the story
The Apple Watch 3 Cellular was launched in India on May 11.
There's no physical SIM card in the smartwatch and the e-SIM on your iPhone is digitally transferred to the embedded chip inside the watch for cellular connectivity.
Only Reliance Jio and Airtel are offering connectivity on the smartwatch in India. However, Jio has now claimed that Airtel is violating government's license rules.
Rule
Government norms mandate operators to set-up network infrastructure inside India
In a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Jio claimed that Airtel has violated unified license (UL) conditions by not setting up the required network infrastructure to offer connectivity on the smartwatch inside India.
As per government norms, operators have to deploy equipment for providing access to services within India and not transfer any user information to any person or place outside India.
Complaint
Airtel is posing a threat to national security: Jio
"At the time of pairing of the iPhone with Apple Watch, over-the-air provisioning of e-SIM is carried out by a dedicated network node. Airtel has not set up the referred e-SIM provisioning node within India in gross violation to the license terms," Jio said.
It also claimed that Airtel is posing a threat to national security since the node contains network and user information.
Response
Airtel denies all allegations
An Airtel spokesperson said, "This is yet another frivolous complaint by a desperate operator whose sole aim appears to have a monopoly over everything they do."
"All information relating to customers and network nodes is hosted in a fully secure manner by Airtel along with provision for lawful interception. The company will be happy to share more details with the DoT," he added.