Nearly three years after it first really helpful towards creating a selected regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) communication providers like WhatsApp, Zoom, and Google Meet, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is revisiting its stance and beginning consultations on how these providers will be regulated.
In a session paper launched Friday (June 7), the TRAI has requested stakeholders to ship options about regulating providers and whether or not a selective banning of OTT providers will be finished versus shutting down all the Web. Regulating such providers has been a protracted standing demand of telecom operators, who’ve for years, been advocating for ‘identical service identical guidelines’.
The event alerts the intersectionality in rules round Web providers, with a number of authorities businesses claiming a stake within the sector. The draft telecom Invoice launched by the Division of Telecommunication (DoT) final yr had additionally really helpful bringing OTT providers below its ambit by making a licensing regime for them. The IT Ministry is already the nodal ministry for regulating such providers.
Is that this a U-turn by TRAI?
In September 2020, TRAI really helpful towards regulatory intervention for OTT platforms, saying that it needs to be left to market forces. Nonetheless, it additionally stated that the sector needs to be monitored and intervention needs to be finished at an “applicable time”.
In 2022, the DoT wrote again to the authority, requesting it to rethink its suggestions and in addition recommend an appropriate regulatory mechanism for “selective banning of OTT providers”.
Why a regulation for OTT communication providers?
The TRAI has primarily argued that whereas telecom operators and OTT platforms comparable to WhatsApp supply related providers, they aren’t sure by the identical necessities – because of this, there’s a want for regulatory parity.
It stated that telecom operators want a service licence for providing voice and SMS providers, and then again “OTT communication service suppliers supply voice name, and messaging and video name providers much like the providers supplied by TSPs, with none such licence”.
Telecom service suppliers in India are regulated by a number of legal guidelines, together with the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, the Wi-fi Telegraphy Act, 1933 and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997, and have to stick to necessities comparable to lawful interception. Such necessities, TRAI stated, usually are not relevant on OTT providers at the moment.
It added that OTT providers don’t financially contribute in the direction of growing telecom providers penetration within the nation in contrast to the operators who should pay in the direction of the Common Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
Why is TRAI exploring selective banning of OTT apps?
TRAI stated that shutdown of telecommunications or the Web can have “vital ramifications for a rustic’s financial system”. “It additionally disrupts crucial providers comparable to training and healthcare. Consequently, such a shutdown impacts the life and livelihood of the residents of the nation,” the regulator stated.
This has been cited as a purpose to discover selectively banning OTT apps, versus the entire Web, a suggestion that was first made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT.
“…web sites that use dynamic IP addresses and are hosted on cloud servers can pose a problem to traditional strategies of blocking,” TRAI stated. “Superior methods will be employed to determine and block entry to such web sites.”
“Additional, there could also be situations the place the focused web sites use Hypertext Switch Protocol Safe (https) protocol. HTTPS protocol gives encryption and safety for web sites, making it tough for service suppliers to dam content material on these websites. Nonetheless, there are nonetheless methods to dam or filter content material at a community degree, comparable to utilizing a firewall or content material filtering software program,” it added.
What’s the key struggle between telcos and OTT apps?
Aside from a distinct regulatory regime, there are different monetary concerns for the tussle between telcos and Web functions. Key amongst them is the avenue of revenues that has shifted from voice and SMS to knowledge.
TRAI stated that the contribution of knowledge utilization within the income from cell subscribers has grown greater than ten instances from 8.10% within the quarter ending (QE) June 2013 to 85.1% within the QE December 2022.
From the yr 2014 to 2022, the amount of month-to-month wi-fi knowledge utilization in India grew by about 156 instances from 92.4 million GB (December 2014) to 14.4 trillion GB (December 2022), TRAI stated.
In the identical interval, the typical income from knowledge utilization per wi-fi subscriber per 30 days within the nation elevated by about 5.6 instances from Rs. 22.19 (for GSM service within the quarter ending December 2014) to Rs. 125.05 (quarter ending December 2022).
What did the draft telecom Invoice prescribe for OTT providers?
One of many key modifications is inclusion of new-age over-the-top communication providers like WhatsApp, Sign and Telegram within the definition of telecommunication providers.
As per the draft regulation, suppliers of telecommunication providers can be lined below the licensing regime, and can be subjected to related guidelines as different telecom operators. This problem has been below competition for a number of years now with telecom service suppliers searching for a level-playing discipline with OTT apps over communication providers comparable to voice calls, messages, and many others. the place operators needed to incur excessive prices of licences and spectrum, whereas OTT gamers rode on their infrastructure to supply free providers.