The Hindu Business Line : Net telephony: TRAI against entry fee on ISPs

New Delhi, March 31 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Tuesday rejected the Department of Telecom’s views on imposing entry fee on Internet service providers for offering unrestricted Net telephony. The telecom regulator reiterated its earlier recommendation that the Government should open up Internet telephony to enable consumers to make voice calls using the Internet backbone. TRAI said that DoT should not charge entry fee from ISPs since there was no spectrum being allocated to them.

The DoT had earlier said that it was in favour of permitting Net telephony services to ISPs but it did not want to disturb the level playing field considering that mobile operators have paid Rs 1,650 crore as entry fee compared to zero fee paid by Internet operators. DoT had sought TRAI’s views on how the level playing field issue should be addressed.

In its response the telecom regulator said, “It is a proven fact that spectrum is a scarce resource and therefore entry fee payable by access service providers reflects the value of spectrum (2G spectrum) to a very large extent. However, an ISP licence does not include allocation of any spectrum to ISPs as part of the licence and therefore their entry fee is low. Therefore, on account of different basic aspect of two licences, the entry fee cannot be compared.”

TRAI said that globally too regulators are charging a much lower entry fee from ISPs compared to a mobile player. “The access service providers can access the subscribers to provide a host of voice and non-voice services whereas ISPs can access subscribers to provide only Internet access and a few Internet-based services as specified in ISP licence, including the proposed Internet telephony. Any direct comparison of access service providers and ISPs, due to vast difference in privileges, services, and resources given to them under their respective licences, does not seem to be desirable,” TRAI said.

ISPs welcome recommendations

The ISPs welcomed TRAI’s recommendations. “Unrestricted Internet telephony services were allowed to unified access operators and to cellular operators in 2006 but no one has started the service even after three years. Hence, restrictions imposed on ISPs must be withdrawn so that such innovative services can reach the common masses,” said Mr Rajesh Chharia, President, ISP Association of India.

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Net telephony: TRAI against entry fee on ISPs