The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has released a consultation paper on regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) services. The regulator has sought views of the industry and other stakeholders on the matter by April 24, 2015 and counter comments by May 8, 2015.
TRAI has published the consultation paper in the wake of ever-growing debate regarding the role of OTT players such as Skype, Viber, Whatspp and GoogleTalk, security concerns and the concept of net neutrality in the country. According to the regulator, worldwide, there is an ongoing debate among governments, industry and consumers regarding regulations of OTT services and net-neutrality. And it is in this backdrop that the regulator has released the consultation paper.
Net-neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should treat all data on the internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, site, platform, or application. As of now, the county has no norms or regulatory framework governing the concept of net neutrality.
The objective of the consultation paper is to analyse the implications of the growth of OTT players and consider whether or not changes are required in the current regulatory framework. At present, users are not charged any fee by the operators to make calls or send messages using applications provided by OTT players. They are required to pay the regular data charge for internet browsing. However, telecom operators are of view that the OTT players are cornering a part of their revenues without investing in networks.
TRAI has stated that the (SMS) messaging traffic in India declined from 5,346 million in June 2013 to 4,367 million in June 2014, witnessing a decline of 18.3 per cent. This decrease can be attributed almost entirely to an increase in traffic of OTT messaging applications. Further, in the consultation paper, TRAI has underlined that characteristic of OTT services were such that operators realised revenues solely from the increased data usage by customers. On the other hand, OTT providers made use of operators? infrastructure to reach their customers and offered products/services that not only made money for them but also competed with the traditional services offered by operators.
Interestingly, the impact on voice services in India due to OTT is not considerable, mainly as voice calling rates in the country are the lowest. Also, mobile internet penetration is only about 20 per cent, that too predominantly on 2G, and quality of service offered by OTT applications is not as good as traditional voice services offered by operators. The regulator, however, has noted that there is some amount of cannibalisation on international calling, where call rates are substantially higher.
