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February, 2002 TELECOM |
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TELECOMMENT Two Faces of IP Telephony T.H. Chowdary
As the government is required to consult the TRAI, the latter has produced a 55-page document. Going through it, I am reminded of what the late Winston Churchill said after listening to a very long speech by a member of the House of Commons, "I compliment the honourable member for compressing so little substance into so long a speech."
Irrational anxieties The fears of telecommunication firms are totally unfounded. India has only 3.5 million Internet users, against over 40 million telephone users. As of now, the bypass of the incumbents' PSTNs and the resultant effect on their revenues won't be substantial. Moreover, people with personal computers have already been availing of Internet telephony illegally. Incumbents also oppose the introduction of Net telephony, contending that the quality of service (QoS) is not good. However, they should realise that there is no compulsion on users to use Internet telephony. Consumers can choose quality for the price that they can afford. Why should incumbents or the regulator be more concerned about customers' preferences than the latter themselves? VoIP is a technology; it is not a service. VoIP costs are much lower than the existing technology using telephone systems. Moreover, unburdened entrance and resultant competition bring in enterprises keen to use new technologies to provide cheaper service to masses. Thus, the opposition to the new means of voice communication is totally misplaced, wrong and against the interest of consumers. Breeding inefficiency Incumbents have also sought protection for their investments and a level playing field. In order to preserve the inefficient, is it right to stop the birth and growth of more efficient ones? We would not like to subject them to financial slaughter. They might be given some time to migrate to a less burdensome licence regime and fix a reasonable sunset date. After that let anybody provide any service, anywhere, using any technology. Every company should be required to put 10 per cent of its revenues into a universal access/service fund. The fund should be utilised to provide telephone and Internet services in rural and remote areas at subsidised rates for the benefit of village communities, schools, primary health centres and public libraries. At any cost, we must have Internet and VoIP telephony because they are in the interest of the people. Instead of periodic excruciating exercises, as new technologies and services show up and the outcome of which will always be contested, we must have a time- and technology-independent principle of licensing services. We already have one-the ISP Policy. We need to have similar policies for all services, irrespective of technologies. The writer is ex-chairman of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd |
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The
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has come out with a
consultative paper seeking public opinion on the introduction of IP
(Internet Protocol) and VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony in the country.
Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan has already promised that by April
1, 2002 Internet telephony would be permitted in the country.
Net telephony sends digitised, encoded and
compressed voice signals as packets over electronic/photonic highways.
Travel is travel, whether one walks, uses a car or an aeroplane.
Similarly, voice is voice, whether sent in packets or analogously, as in
public switched telephone networks (PSTN). However, the TRAI wants us to
believe that it is a new service. Existing operators, including the DoT
(now Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd), are objecting to the introduction of IP
telephony for fear of losing their market share and revenues. But the
communications minister has made it clear that the people's interest must
prevail over such concerns; telcos must use their ingenuity to find new
liens of business, increase traffic and generate revenues by providing
customers more services at affordable prices.
