TRAI suggests fine on Airtel, Vodafone, Idea for troubling Jio 4G

New Delhi: In a major setback for leading telecom players, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday recommended hefty fines on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for providing insufficient Points of Interconnections (PoI) to Reliance Jio 4G.

The telecom watchdog has recommended a fine of Rs 1050cr each for Airtel and Vodafone and Rs 950cr for Idea Cellular.

TRAI has recommended a penal action of Rs 50 crore per licence service area (LSA) (except Jammu & Kashmir). Airtel and Vodafone have been slapped fines for 21 LSAs each and Idea for 19 LSAs.

What was the case?

• On July 14, Reliance Jio penned a letter to TRAI alleging that the concern telecom players were not providing it with sufficient PoI.
• After much observation, TRAI found the three telecom major wrong on their part.
• TRAI said, “Incumbent operators were in "non-complaince of the terms and conditions of licence and denial of interconnection to Reliance Jio appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer."

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