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COAI director general SP Kochhar told reporters Tuesday that the government should clearly define communication services to remove any ambiguity on the concept.
“The definition should be clear and futuristic when it comes to communications,” Kochhar said.
COAI has also submitted its suggestions to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as part of the consultations on the draft telecom bill.
The demand for a clear definition for communication services comes in the backdrop of technology players' assertion that OTTs can’t be brought under the purview of telecommunications. Stressing on the point around OTTs, Broadband India Forum (BIF), which counts tech players like Meta<\/a>, Google<\/a>, Amazon, Microsoft<\/a>, Intel<\/a>, TCS<\/a>, OneWeb, Star etc as its members, in its submission said bringing such players under the ambit of the telecommunication service licence implies that the government only holds the exclusive privileges to decide, build, develop and operate the OTT apps.
“Such a situation is grossly anomalous, highly impractical and will lead to a collapse of the entire app ecosystem and thereby impacting innovation and growth of the economy,” BIF said.
BIF echoes views by another tech players’ body, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which too had demanded that content and broadcasting should be kept outside the purview of telecom. In contrast, telecom firms like Reliance Jio<\/a>, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea<\/a> want the government to bring OTTs under the regulatory regime.
All the stakeholders have submitted their views on the draft telecom bill, which was put up for public consultation in September. DoT has tried to simplify the language and regulatory framework in the draft bill, which will be the nodal legislation for governing the telecom sector.
Meanwhile, in its budget wishlist to the Finance Ministry, the COAI has urged the government for a cut in licence fee to 1%, and sought waiver of customs duty on network equipment for 5G rollout. The association has also pushed for abolition of the Universal Service Obligation Fund or USOF.
Other demands include refund of accumulated input tax credit of GST (Rs 32,000 crore) and clarification regarding availability of input tax credit on critical equipment installed on telecom towers.
COAI is also working on a possible revenue sharing model with OTTs, which will be shared with DoT when required.
“OTT communication service providers can pay directly to the telecom operators for use of their networks for providing their services in a fair and equitable manner by way of an equivalent of ‘interconnect charge’ (say network access charge) for the actual traffic carried by these OTTs on telecom networks, which can be easily measured,” COAI said.
It further suggested that contribution of OTTs to network costs can be based on assessable criteria like volume of traffic, turnover threshold, number of users, etc.