Telecom panel decision on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea penalty deferred

Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Email

Comments

The Digital Communications Commission (DCC), formerly known as Telecom Commission deferred its decision of levying penalty on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular for not providing points of interconnection (PoIs) to Reliance Jio on their networks in the absence of some members.

Another reason for deferring the decision could be conflicting views of the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) panel that is looking into the matter. The DCC had certain queries on the two reports submitted by an internal panel of DoT that is divided over the penalty on Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea for not providing PoIs to Jio on their networks.

An internal panel of DoT comprising seven members is divided over the penalty proposal. Four of the seven members are in favour of imposing penalty on Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea, while the rest are against it. “Since the full quorum was not present today (Thursday), the panel felt it would be more appropriate if the whole commission was present before taking any decision on the penalty,” a source said.