A man carries a cup of as he walks past a Reliance Jio Infocomm 4G mobile services logo in Mumbai on September 6, 2016 India's richest man Mukesh Ambani has announced that his Reliance Industries' long-awaited 4G mobile services would finally launch in September 2016, sending shares of rival Bharti Airtel plummeting almost seven percent. / AFP PHOTO / INDRANIL MUKHERJEE
KUALA LUMPUR: Axiata Group Bhd
’s 19.8%-owned associate Idea Cellular Ltd and India’s other top three network operators have been fined a combined 30.5 billion rupees (RM1.91bil) by the country’s telecoms regulator on Friday, Reuters reported.
This was after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) found Idea, Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Plc’s India subsidiary were denying new entrant Reliance Jio sufficient interconnection points.
“Jio, part of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, began offering 4G services in September, triggering a war over network points that connect Jio customers with Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Plc’s India subsidiary and Idea Cellular Ltd,” Reuters said.
Based on Jio’s complaints, TRAI recommmended a fine of 500 million rupees (RM31.3mil) per telecom zone for each of the three operators.
According to the report, Airtel and Vodafone India were fined for 21 zones each while Idea was fined for 19 zones in a country with a total of 22 telecoms zones or circles. That works out to a fine of 9.5 billion rupees (RM594.2mil) for Idea.
The denial of POI to Jio “appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer”, TRAI said in a statement.
Idea is India’s third largest mobile telecommunications operator.
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