Apex Telecom Body DCC Approves A Rs 3,050-Crore Total Fine On Airtel, Vodafone Idea For Denial Of PoIs To Reliance Jio
[ By Bobby Anthony ]The apex decision making body of the telecom department, the Digital Communications Commission, has approved imposition of a total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd for not providing sufficient points of interconnection (PoIs) to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.However, the DCC has decided to take Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s...
The apex decision making body of the telecom department, the Digital Communications Commission, has approved imposition of a total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd for not providing sufficient points of interconnection (PoIs) to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.
However, the DCC has decided to take Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) view on revising the quantum of penalty, after taking into consideration the financial stress in the telecom sector.
The DCC also disagreed with a proposal put forth by one of the telecom secretaries to fine Reliance Jio since the company too had failed to deliver quality service to its customers.
During the deliberations, a secretary from a nodal ministry had suggested that the penalty should be apportioned and applied on Reliance Jio as well.
The DCC disagreed with his point about whether the responsibility of providing quality of service to customers by the primary license holder could be shifted on to other license holders and did not extend the fine to Reliance Jio as well.
In this connection, it may be recalled that in October 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended a total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Airtel and Vodafone Idea for allegedly denying PoIs to newcomer Reliance Jio.
TRAI had stopped short of recommending cancellation of their telecom licences stating that it may lead to significant inconvenience for their customers.
TRAI's recommendation was based on a complaint by Reliance Jio that more than 75% of calls on its network failed since Airtel, Vodafone and Idea had not released sufficient number of points of interconnection.
Points of interconnection are enablers which allow calls to be transferred from one telecom network to the other.
The dispute arose after Reliance Jio had accused older telecom operators, namely Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, of deliberately denying it adequate points of interconnection in order to hurt its service.