Reliance Jio Denies Sabotaging Telegram Access Outside India

Reliance Jio has denied allegations of sabotaging Telegram access outside India.

Reliance Jio has clarified that it was not involved in any kind of border gateway protocol (BGP) route misconfiguration following Telegram's founder and CEO Pavel Durov allegations on social media platform X that the operator was sabotaging access to the app for people outside India by using BGP hijacking.

Durov had termed the sabotage intentional and also linked it to a competitive war as Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, has a stake in Reliance Jio.

"Recent posts on X have led to speculation regarding Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (AS55836) and a BGP route misconfiguration. We categorically clarify that Jio has not been involved in any such incident. Jio continues to operate its network in accordance with global Internet routing best practices and the highest standards of reliability, security, and transparency," the Mukesh Ambani-owned company said on X.

Experts said there was ambiguity in Durov's comment on X and if he meant Reliance Communications or Reliance Jio Infocomm. In his comment claiming sabotage, Durov mentioned Reliance (AS18101) which is Reliance Communications.

In a separate message, the Telegram founder shared a snapshot, which mentioned the company as Reliance Communications. Reliance Jio Infocomm's (AS55836) name was not mentioned in the snapshot shared by Durov.