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August 19, 2008
In Praise of the Indian regulator, TRAI, for proposing to Open Up the Indian Market to VoIP
I praise TRAI for proposing to open up the Indian market to VoIP.
Yesterday in a big win for the VON Coalition and VoIP enthusiasts around the world, the Indian regulator TRAI issued its recommendation on "Issues Related to Internet Telephony." The VON Coalition filed a comprehensive set of recommendation in June of this year in this proceeding arguing that they should open their market to VoIP and it appears that they have followed the thrust of their recommendations. TRAI is recommending a framework that essentially allows unrestricted VoIP offerings in India. Previously (among other problems), VoIP services were unable to make calls directly to the Indian public switched telephone network (PSTN).
They found that their existing regulatory framework was slowing the adoption of VoIP and preventing broader adoption of broadband - and thus find that they need to remove regulatory barriers to VoIP availability and adoption.
Key recommendations include:
- ISPs have been permitted to provide unrestricted Internet telephony (Termination of Internet telephony calls on PSTN/PLMN and vice-versa).
- National Long Distance (NLD) operators shall be permitted to connect to ISPs through public Internet (Internet cloud) for unrestricted Internet telephony.
- ISPs and NLD shall have mutual agreement for unrestricted Internet telephony.
- NLD shall make suitable commercial and technical arrangements with access providers (PSTN/PLMN) for unrestricted Internet telephony.
- No change in existing IUC regime.
- TEC shall identify distinct number resources for Internet Telephony subscribers.
- Telephone numbers from identified blocks shall be allocated to ISPs, UASPs, BSOs & CMSPs for Internet telephony.
- Emergency number dialing is not mandated to ISPs. (they note on page 55 that "Imposition of restrictions and mandatory obligations may kill the initiative to provide unrestricted Internet telephony before a service can commercially pickup"
- All ISPs interested to provide unrestricted Internet telephony shall install Lawful Interception equipment.
- Quality of service (QoS) for unrestricted telephony has not been mandated.
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With all this said, its important to note that this is not yet a fait accompli. These recommendations now go to the Department of Telecom (DOT) which has been known to disagree with TRAI before - but I expect these will be adopted. It is great to see such a sign from the country that is often the "back office" to the rest of the world is likely to begin opening its door to the benefits of VoIP.
Finally, one of the most populous countries in the world is on the move to advance VoIP.
Special thanks to everyone who has been working on making this happen.
Tags: voip, India, TRAI, VON Coalition, Public Policy, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on August 19, 2008 08:21 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Please do a bit web searching what Indian Telcos earn. Example Airtel earnings is 1 Crore Per Hour.
How much do u think it takes to bribe a Indian Govt Offical. I am Sorry to Say Telcos like Airtel can bribe the Highest n Mightiest in the Government and it wont cost them a Days earning.
Indian telcos wont let VoIP Loose in a price competitive market in India where a Mediocre Tech Guy can create Competition for them.
I dont expect much to happen in VoIP in India "Legally" exception is grey market n sincerely wish that i be wrong....
Posted by: Ajay Singh at October 10, 2008 06:38 PM
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Posted by: muhabbet at October 3, 2008 07:05 PM
hi,
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is technology that provides telephone service over the Internet. The first kind of VOIP service was computer to computer communication. The cost savings to consumers is a plus for VOIP.
Posted by: void telephone service providers at September 2, 2008 04:57 PM
hiii
now all the organisations are looking for the voip technology... because it is helping people to make calls throught out the world easily.
let us waitand see how VOIP technolgy will get improved.
Posted by: voip service provider in at August 19, 2008 02:10 PM
Hey Jeff,
I feel a little odd calling you by your 1st name only as here in India we don't do that to our elders.
Anyways, this is actually a great news. 1st thing that caught my eye today in the newspaper. But India is known as a country where if you have money & power you can do ANYTHING and believe me the news was not a great NEWS for Tel cos here and since they have paid a hefty fees of 1650 crores of Rs. for having a pan-India license for telephony and the same is just Rs. 2o lakhs for ISPs to offer the same services, it is more than likely that the Tel cos here would oppose this move and the recommendations.
Its going to be really tough and the fact that the tel cos stand to lose crores of rupees if the recommendations are accepted wont be digested by the likes of Reliance communications, Tata Indicom and Bharti Airtel who are global tel cos and they will make sure they do not let this happen. As of today, all of them earn MASSIVE amount of money. Just have a look at any of these companies Balance sheets.
I just hope this happens sometime soon. This may take years also as the government machinery in India can be real slow in implementing things.
Looking forward as to what develops.
Posted by: Hardeep Singh at August 19, 2008 09:35 AM