The Telecom companies of India, that are represented by their industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), on Monday to review its orders on prohibiting differential pricing model for data services that are based on content, and instead allow the service providers to price content irrespective of such services that are being offered within or outside their network.
Rajan S Mathews director-general of COAI wrote in a letter to Sudhir Gupta, secretary at Trai, developing applications/ VAS/ Platforms (herein called ‘Products’) requires significant amount of resources, innovation and investments, and it would be unfair, if such products are found to be in violation of Trai’s regulation inadvertently. In such cases, TSPs (Telecom service providers) and/ or developers’ huge investments, time, resources will go to waste.
This request for relooking into the order comes after some operators have reportedly been approached by their respective content providers to subsidise / discount their content but at the same time, provide exclusivity over the closed e-communications network, as defined by the sectoral regulator. The COAI said, that in such instances, some of the content providers might even share their advertising revenue, and has therefore sought clarity from the regulator, whether such a practice can and would be allowed. For instance, Bharti Airtel had sought Trai’s permission last month, since the firm said it is close to tying up with a US-based global content provider which would be offering it video content on an exclusive basis to provide to its subscribers within its network.
