Jio crisis: Airtel, Vodafone, Idea may pay Rs 3050 crore penalty for hindrance

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On Reliance Jio complaint, Trai suggests Rs 3050 crore fine on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular
On Reliance Jio complaint, Trai suggests Rs 3050 crore fine on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular

New Delhi : Major telecom companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular may end-up paying Rs 3050 crore as fine for hurdling smooth flow in calling services by Reliance Jio, which was launched on commercially on September 5, 2016.

The companies have been alleged of not providing enough interconnect points to Reliance Jio, leading to massive call failures.

Trai has written a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary suggesting a penalty of Rs 50 crore per region for 21 service areas, except Jammu & Kashmir, for Airtel and Vodafone. 

For Idea Cellular the penalty has been restricted to 19 service circles except Himachal Pradesh, J&K and North East.

If the penalty gets imposed as per suggestion, then Bharti Airtel and Vodafone will have to pay Rs 1050 crore each; while Idea Cellular will end up paying Rs 950 crores as fine.

According to a report, Trai was looking forward to offer licence cancellation of these telecom companies. But, the idea was dropped as that could have led to a massive user inconvenience.

The penalty has been recommended over a complaint filed by Jio Network claiming that 75 per cent of the calls are getting dropped on their network because its rival companies are not allowing sufficient PoIs that are required to complete calls.

Trai said denial of interconnection by these operators to Jio “appears to be with the ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer”.

HIGHLIGHTS

# Trai suggests penalty of Rs 3050 crores on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular

# Reliance Jio has alleged them of not allowing sufficient pols for smooth calls

# Rs 50 crore penalty has been suggested for per service circle

Reliance Jio services were launched in India on September 5, 2016.

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