TRAI rejects proposal of Telecos wanting a share of revenue from services like Whatsapp

[Navjot Singh]

Trai rejects telcos' proposal to charge fee on popular services like WhatsApp, Viber and Skype

Better sense prevailed eventually.

"One-third of the incremental revenue of the telecom industry is coming from data services itself. As far as the voice services are concerned, there is an upswing in the realisation rates," one of the Trai officials told ET, explaining the rationale for not intervening for now.

"There is no proposal for a consultation paper (on regulating companies offering free messaging and calling services)," he added.

HAHAHA.

 

[Sushubh]

Chalo good

 

[amish]

... the rationale for not intervening for now.

looks like everybody missed "for now"! Which means, its not rejected completely but decision is just postponed!

 

[Sushubh]

Trai has no power here anyways.

 

[amish]

TRAI becomes powerless only when it wants to stop something that telecoms want!

But TRAI will have all the power to implement something that telecoms want!

 

[Sushubh]

There are no network neutrality laws in India. Airtel can block WhatsApp tomorrow and I doubt TRAI can do much about it.

 

[volcano619]

DoT??

 

[Navjot Singh]

And *drum rolls*

On contradictory reports on TRAI consultation on Internet Services Regulation

Update: An August 20th story by PTI indicates that the consultation paper will be released. Further discredits the ET story. We haven’t heard back from TRAI yet. (hat tip: Amlan Mohanty)

 

[Sushubh]

Looks like money has been paid to the relevant party.

 

[Sushubh]

Telcos’ turnover to get $8-billion boost from data, reveals Google - Financial Express