The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a consultation paper on the ‘Framework for the Service Authorisations to be Granted Under the Telecommunications Act, 2023′.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) through a letter dated June 21, 2024 informed TRAI that the Telecommunications Act, 2023 has been published in the Official Gazette of India; Section 3(1)(a) of the Act provides for obtaining an authorisation by any entity/person intending to provide telecommunication services, subject to such terms and conditions, including fees or charges, as may be prescribed.

In the consultation paper, TRAI has raised 61 questions regarding what should be the terms and conditions, authorisation fee, period of validity, scope of service, etc for the mechanism. Some of them include:

  • Whether the government should issue an authorisation to the applicant entity, as is the international practice in several countries, in place of the extant practice of the government entering into a license agreement with the applicant entity
  • What safeguards are required to be put in place to ensure the long-term regulatory stability
  • Whether there is a need for introducing a unified service authorisation at national level for the provision of end-to-end telecommunication services
  • Whether there is need for merging the scopes of the extant national long distance (NLD) service authorisation and international long distance (ILD) service authorisation into a single authorisation namely long-distance service authorisation under the Telecommunications Act, 2023
  • Whether there is need for merging the scopes of the extant global mobile personal communications by satellite (GMPCS) authorisation and commercial very small aperture terminal (VSAT) Closed User Group (CUG) service authorisation into a single authorisation
  • Whether there is a need for merging the scopes of the extant infrastructure provider-I (IP-I) and digital connectivity infrastructure provider (DCIP) authorisation into a single authorization

TRAI has invited written comments on the issues raised in the consultation paper from the stakeholders by August 1, 2024 and counter-comments by August 8, 2024.