New Delhi: Amid ongoing discussions on regulating over-the-top (OTT) applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Friday sought views from the industry on the need for a regulatory mechanism for such applications as well as issues related to selective banning of these services.
TRAI’s fresh consultation paper, ‘Regulatory Mechanism for OTT Communication Services, and Selective Banning of OTT Services’, follows a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) communique sent in September 2022 that requested TRAI to reconsider its 2020 recommendations on a regulatory framework for OTTs and suggest a suitable regulatory mechanism for these platforms, including issues relating to “selective banning of OTT services”.
In its 2020 recommendation, TRAI had ruled out the need to regulate communication apps saying that the time was not opportune to recommend a comprehensive regulatory framework for various aspects of OTT services.
“Market forces may be allowed to respond to the situation without prescribing any regulatory intervention. However, developments shall be monitored and intervention as felt necessary shall be done at appropriate time,” the regulator had said at the time.
However, the DoT stated in its September 2022 letter that in view of the humongous growth of OTT services and the services having reached a matured stage, there is a need to holistically look into the various aspects of these services, including regulatory, economic, security, privacy, and safety aspects.
In Friday’s consultation paper, TRAI has sought views on 14 questions pertaining to definition of OTT services, categories in which such services can be listed, definition of OTT communication services, whether there is a need to bring OTT communication services under any licensing/regulatory framework, and what should be the provisions of such a framework.
It has also sought comments on whether there is need for a collaborative framework between OTT communication service providers and the licensed telecommunication service providers, and challenges arising out of the collaborative framework and its impact on net neutrality.
On the issues related to selective banning of OTT services, the regulator has asked for views on technical challenges in implementing the ban on specific OTT services and websites in specific regions of the country for a specific period. It has also asked if there is a need to put in place a regulatory framework for selective banning of OTT services.
Further, it asks that in case a regulatory framework for selective banning of OTT services is put in place, which categories of OTT services should be covered under selective banning and what should be the provisions and mechanism for such a regulatory framework.
“Whether there is a need to selectively ban specific websites apart from OTT services to meet the purposes? If yes, which class(es) of websites should be included for this purpose?” the consultation paper asks.
Written comments on the consultation paper have to be submitted by 4 August while counter-comments are allowed till 18 August.
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‘Impact of OTT services being analysed in many countries’
“In the past one decade, OTT services have hugely impacted the telecommunication ecosystem worldwide,” TRAI says in the consultation paper. “As a result, the impact of OTTs is being analysed in many countries.”
It also noted that in India, initial attempts to analyse the impact of OTT services were made in 2015 separately by TRAI and the DoT.
While TRAI had issued a consultation paper on regulatory framework for OTT services in March 2015 (which remained inconclusive), a report on net neutrality was released by a DoT committee in May 2015.
After that, TRAI issued recommendations and regulations pertaining to specific issues referred to it by the DoT, including ‘the Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations, 2016’, a recommendation on ‘Regulatory Framework for Internet Telephony’ in 2017, recommendations on ‘Net Neutrality’ in 2017, and recommendations on ‘Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in the Telecom Sector’ in 2018.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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