OTT players may have been removed from new telecom bill

New Delhi: The government is likely to have removed over-the-top (OTT) players, or apps, from the definition of telecommunication services in the telecom bill, giving huge relief to communication service providers such as WhatsApp and Telegram who will thus remain out of telecom regulation.

Further, officials aware of the details told ET that the government has proposed administrative allocation of spectrum for satellite services, as part of the bill, a move that will be a major victory for satcom companies like Elon Musk’s Starlink, Bharti Group-backed OneWeb and Amazon, and deal a setback to the likes of Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea who were pushing for those airwaves to be auctioned.