Trai for bandwidth resale to remove bottlenecks

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)has recommended a series of measures, including permitting the resale of bandwidth, to remove what they termed as "various bottlenecks persisting in the segment".

The regulator also said that there was no effective competition in the international bandwidth space, and that resulted in high tariffs.

"After the opening up of international long-distance sector in March 2002, effective competition has not taken place in the international private lease circuits (IPLC) market due to various impediments and the price has not come down sufficiently as desired," Trai said.

However, the recommendations were silent on the issue of the recent cuts in entry and licence fees. The regulator has proposed that the resale of the IPLC be permitted with effect from February 2007 and existing conditions of the ILDO licence be suitably amended to permit the same.

There must be equal ease of access to landing facilities at Cable Landing Station (CLS) and permission for landing of new cables had to be mandated without any time limit, the regulator said, while adding that licence conditions must be accordingly modified to enable it to issue the requisite regulation.

Trai has also proposed that international cable carriers be allowed to terminate cable capacities on existing landing stations to provide IPLC to ILD operators.

"Such carriers must be licensed with the government as international infrastructure providers without any entry fee and annual revenue share," the regulator said.

"It is expected that through such steps various bottlenecks in the IPLC segment will get addressed to facilitate effective competition," the regulator added.