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25
May 2017
Sticking
to its earlier stand, the Indian telecom regulator on Wednesday recommended
penal action against three operators -- Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea
Cellular -- for not providing adequate points of interconnections (PoI) to
newcomer Reliance Jio.
The
amount of penalty the three collectively have to pay is Rs 3050 crore.
In
similarly worded decisions against the three operators, the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (TRAI) said it "considered it appropriate to recommend
penal action... in view of the large public interest involved." The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
An
Airtel spokesperson said that the company disagreed with TRAI's recommendation
and requested the Department of Telecom (DoT) to reject it. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
"The
penalty has been recommended on the basis of an incorrect assessment of the
situation on the ground," the spokesman said in a statement. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Airtel
requested the Department of Telecom (DoT) to reject the recommendations and
"take into consideration the actions taken on ground by Bharti
Airtel". It said "the fact is that we have provided PoIs to Jio at an
unprecedented pace despite the provision of 90 days in the licence".
The
regulator, in response to queries by the DoT, said that its earlier penalty
imposed on the three companies on the basis of licence service areas (LSA) were
being confirmed. It had proposed penalties of Rs 1,050 crore each on Airtel and
Vodafone and Rs 950 crore on Idea for 21 and 19 licence service areas.
TRAI
said under the rules it is not prevented from exercising its mandate to make
recommendations to the government for wilful non-compliance of terms and
conditions of license.
The
sector regulator in October said the top three telecom operators in the country
had violated licence norms by denying adequate PoI to Jio. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
The
TRAI said Department of Telecommunications (DoT) may appreciate the fact that
Airtel, Vodafone and Idea were "intentionally denying and delaying the
provision/augmentation of PoIs to RJIL (Reliance Jio Infocomm), only to
restrict a new entrant, thus violating the terms and conditions of licence and
regulations/directions of the Authority, which also caused a lot of
inconvenience to consumers."
It
added that after its intervention the incumbent players have provided PoI
capacity at much shorter notices (in some seven instances within 2-3 days),
which implies "that it was capable of providing such POIs" without
delay. The Total Investment &
Insurance Solutions
"In
this context, the denial and delay in providing PoIs when the quality of
service (QoS) parameters were not being met cannot be explained in any other
manner but wilful."
It said
there was no provision in the licence or TRAI Regulation "to deny/delay
provisioning of PoIs during the test phase. On the contrary, the testing cannot
be completed unless sufficient PoIs are provided." The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
TRAI said
it was clear that the incumbents TSPs were not willing to provide adequate POIs
to RJIL to provide a satisfactorily service to its customers on launch of its
commercial service.
The
TRAI said it took into consideration the efforts made by the incumbent
operators in providing sufficient number of PoIs to RJIL. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
"However,
on finding that the incumbent operators are not willing to provide adequate
POIs to RJIL as per its projections and demand, the Authority had to issue show
cause notices to the telecom service providers." The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
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