Editorial- October -2016

We have done a comprehensive interview with the Trai chairman, RS Sharma, for this issue of TelecomLive. There were many questions and there are many answers. And also there are a few questions to which answers were declined. But on the whole, it is possible to determine from the interview, the regulatory terrain and pitch that Mr Sharma would run during his tenure.

First, come March 1, 2017, and either a reduced MTC (mobile termination charge) or BAK (bill and keep), would become effective. There is a consultation paper on the subject which details why the review of existing charges is needed. At the time of the imposition of these charges (March 1, 2015), it was stated that the review of MTC would take place after two years. But this was seen as no limitation. And, a consultation on this matter establishes that the MTC was wrong and that a review is an urgent requirement. The MTC brought in by the previous Trai chairman, Rahul Khullar was in itself, unfair and unjust and went against commitments made by Trai in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that it would move to BAK. What Trai did instead, was to bring in a MTC of Rs 0.14 per minute for mobile-to-mobile calls and also dragged SMS into a similar charging method at a 2+5 p model (basic SMS + transactional SMS). The SMS sector has not been touched in the consultation paper and so it can be assumed that there will be no relief for the SMS segment and the existing charging regime will continue.

Second, Internet cloud technologies will be promoted for voice, allowing for Fixed Mobile convergence through app downloads. This could be disruptive for traditional voice business. But, Mr Sharma says his responsibility is to harness technology for consumer benefit, ensure quality of service and not to look after the maintainability of existing business models. So, expect innovation-promoting regulations. A major field of action would be Internet telephony and the Internet cloud would be harvested both for optimizing quality and scale.

Third, Trai will come out with elaborate Net Neutrality rules. It will do so because the government desires that this sphere be comprehensively rule-based. Till now, only one aspect of Net Neutrality has been dealt with by Trai, which it called Differential Pricing.

Fourth, Trai will make ambitious Spectrum band recommendations. It is going to recommend higher bands where bigger blocks can be given to operators.

Mr Sharma took a lot many questions on Jio, the fracas over PoIs with other operators and COAI’s behaviour on this matter. In this edition of the magazine we also bring you a detailed financial analysis of Jio’s Datagiri. But that is a separate story.