Why Reliance Jio and Airtel are again fighting Netflix, Amazon and other OTT players

It’s once again Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea vs OTT (over-the-top) companies like Amazon, Netflix and others. Telcos want these OTT players to contribute to the creation of India’s 5G infrastructure. According to a report in Economic Times, the telecom companies led by Reliance Jio have reached out to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). In its submission to TRAI, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio has urged the regulator to recommend that significant OTT players – that generate maximum data traffic – contribute to network costs that are presently being shouldered entirely by telcos.

Jio slammed large OTTs, saying that it’s no secret that OTTs, as in, communications, streaming, gaming and social media companies, consume humongous amounts of bandwidth, which puts tremendous pressure on network infrastructure established by telcos without contributing an iota to this cost.