Industry groups hit back on telco’s demands to regulate, charge OTTs

 NEW DELHI: Industry bodies and civil society organisations on Thursday countered telco’s demands to regulate OTTs and charge them ‘fair share’ by submitting counter comments on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) consultation paper on the regulatory framework for OTT communication services and the selective banning of OTT services.

The TRAI proposal on selective banning of OTT or Internet services has resulted in a fierce debate among the industry bodies, internet companies and startup founders.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) said the majority of ‘OTT services’, are in addition to, and not in derogation or substitution of, traditional telecommunications (or broadcasting) services.

“OTTs provide bundled services that cannot be separated into ‘OTT Communication Services,’ ‘OTT Broadcasting services,’ etc., making defining OTT overall or subsets of OTT for regulatory purposes near impossible,” ITI said in a statement.

However, the functions of these OTT services are already regulated under the IT Act 2000.

Broadband India Forum (BIF) expressed in its counter comments that the demand for network usage fees from OTTs by telecom operators is outdated and would violate net neutrality principles.

“Overregulation of the OTTs would be counterproductive, as this will lead to a higher cost to customers and reduce consumer choice. Besides, it would also adversely impact innovation, lead to discrimination, adversely impact smaller entities and startups, and lead to a violation of Net Neutrality guidelines,” said T.V. Ramachandran, BIF President.

The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), a policy think tank for digital startups, said that calls for revenue-sharing arrangements between telecom service providers (TSPs) and OTT applications are primarily grounded in the misperception that OTTs are benefiting without making any contributions, while TSPs are burdened with infrastructure and licensing costs. (IANS)

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