Will wait for telecom commission's decision on PoI related to Rs 3050 crore fines on incumbents: Jio

MUMBAI: Reliance Jio said it will wait for the telecom commission to take a call on the sectoral regulator's recommendation of levying Rs 3,050 crore penalty on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea for denying the new telco adequate points of interconnect, which hurt consumers.

“Jio will now await telecom commission’s decision. About 6-8 months back, all telco meet was called by the telecom department and they explained their issue. Now, it is upto commission to decide,” said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy for Jio.

He was referring to a media report that a majority of the telecom department’s special committee had rejected the regulator’s recommendations of levying Rs 3050 crore fine on Bharti Airtel and erstwhile Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for not providing sufficient points of interconnectivity (POI) to Jio when it launched its operations in September 2016. “We suffered a lot then,” added Thakur on Thursday .


The DoT had formed a special committee to look info Trai’s recommendations but sources say most of the committee rejected the fine amount, Trai had exceeded its jurisdiction which fell under the telecom tribunal as it was a dispute between operators.