Telecom players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular denied providing sufficient interconnection to Reliance Jio to which the Indian telecom regulator charged penalties to them.
The telecom regulatory authority of India has suggested a penal action of Rs 50 crore per license service area. Airtel and Vodafone are charged with fine of Rs 1050 crore each for 21 LSAs while to Idea the fine was Rs950 crore for 19 LSAs. Reliance Jio on 14th July has sent a letter to the regulator mentioning about the other telecom companies are not providing them enough interconnect points with technical parameters.
After several communications with the operators, TRAI came to a decision that each of them is a non-complaint to provide enough Pol between them and Reliance Jio. The regulator also mentioned that these three operators fall under the “non-compliance of the terms and conditions and the denial to provide enough interconnection to Reliance Jio clearly proves that these operators are in a motive to suppress competition.
Such act by the operators was against public interest. When a company falls under the non- compliance of terms and conditions of license deserves recommendation of revocation of license.
The authority is also aware of that revocation of the licence will entail major consumer inconvenience and therefore in favor of larger public interest the authority suggested penal action.
