MUMBAI, Oct 21 (Reuters) - India's telecoms regulator onFriday recommended the country's top three network operators befined a combined 30.5 billion rupees ($456 million) after itfound they were denying new entrant Reliance Jio sufficientinterconnection points.
Jio, part of India's richest man Mukesh Ambani's RelianceIndustries Ltd, began offering 4G services inSeptember, triggering a war over network points that connect Jiocustomers with Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Plc's India subsidiary and Idea Cellular Ltd.
Responding to Jio's complaints over the denial of points ofinterconnection (POI), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) recommended a fine of 500 million rupees per telecom zonefor each of the three operators.
Airtel and Vodafone India were fined for 21 zones each whileIdea was fined for 19 zones in a country with a total of 22telecoms zones or circles.
The denial of POI to Jio "appears to be with ulterior motiveto stifle competition and is anti-consumer", TRAI said in astatement.
Reliance Jio did not respond to an email seeking commentwhile Airtel, Vodafone and Idea declined comment.
($1 = 66.9126 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal and Promit Mukherjee; editingby David Clarke)