The central government has finalised the broad outline for the Communications Bill, which will repeal four existing Acts, including the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act 1997. Under the new bill, a single regulator will be appointed to govern telecom, information technology and broadcasting domains. The regulator will be given wider powers, which will equip it to deal with issues like network neutrality, competition, spectrum management and inter-operatability of applications, services and devices. However, a clause will be included in the bill which will allow the government to overrule the regulator at any time.
The proposed Communications Commission under the bill will comprise a chairperson and six members with proven professional experience in telecom, broadcasting, finance, accountancy, law or consumer affairs. The new bill comes after more than a decade since it was first proposed as the Communications Convergence Bill in 2001.
One of the key regulatory principles listed in the Bill is the way interconnection charges will be applied between telecom operators and content providers. At present, the government is undertaking discussions on issues pertaining to the separation of content from transmission.
