Let telecom bygones be bygones dcc

Let telecom bygones be bygones dcc

Both sides played rough in the telecom war.
The Digital Communications Commission (DCC) should decline the telecom regulator’s recommendation to levy a fine of ₹3,050 crore on telecom operators other than Reliance Jio for their failure to provide Jio with sufficient numbers of interconnect points, in the interest of the telecom industry and its ability to service its consumers. The foremost point is its irrelevance from a regulatory perspective. A regulator is appointed to right wrongs in the sector it regulates as and when these occur. Enforcement of laws post-fact is the job of the courts and the police, and penal action against wrongdoers is meant to deter future misconduct. If such maintenance of rectitude is all that is required for a sector to function well, there is no need for a regulator: clear-cut laws would do the job. The problem was in September 2016, at present there is no insufficiency of interconnect points among service providers.

Did incumbent operators delay grant of interconnect points to Jio? Probably they did, or, at least, they delayed granting interconnection on a large enough scale as long as they legally could. Trai regulation calls for compliance within 90 days of request for interconnection. Was this the most decent conduct on the part of the incumbents? Probably not. But then, Jio had an inordinately long testing phase, during which it amassed commercial customers but did not call them as such, because it had the financial muscle to subsidise services for a prolonged period. Both sides played a rough game in the commercial marketplace, but took care to stay within the limits of legality. Trai’s conclusion of non-compliance, says Bharti, is based on its examination of one day’s state of interconnect, whereas it should have looked at how interconnection progressed over at least a month. There is merit in this argument.
v A fine of ₹3,050 crore would be an additional burden on a telecom industry that is already financially stricken. If DCC accepts the fine recommended by Trai, it would add the cost of prolonged litigation to telecom’s burden — it is guaranteed to be challenged in the courts — and Indian telecom would be no better off.