Google says no to voice facility launch in India

A couple of months after internet search engine Google launched Google Voice-its service allowing internet to mobile phone calls, the company today said the service could not be launched in India due to legal constraints.

“While India is a key market for us, product-wise, and despite the fact that Google Voice is slated to be an important part of our portfolio, we will not launch it here, because of restrictions laid by law,” said Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India.

According to Clause 1(14) of the revised license scheme of internet telephony services launched by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), voice over internet calls are allowed in three situation:

First, if the calls emanate from a personal computer (PC) in India to a PC outside the country; second, where a PC in India is used to call a telephone outside India; and third, from an IP-based H.323/SIP Terminal in India to similar terminals in India and abroad.

This means that while users would be allowed to call telephones outside the country, calling telephone users within India is a problem.

“So, while launching the service is legal, and acceptable, at best it would be a half-service because users would not be allowed to make PC to telephone calls within the country. We do not see any justification in launching a half-service,” Goel said.

Google eyes mobile internet users
On the back of a three-fold growth in internet users in India and the growing smart phone market, Google has set its sight on mobile phone internet users. “Going forward in the Indian market, Google will increasingly customise products to suit users on mobile phones. We have, for example, customised Google Instant as a phone application,” Goel said.

According to the company’s assessments, the primary factors driving growth of mobile internet users would be the fact that India boasts of some of the cheapest internet data plans across the world. Added to this, increasing SmartPhone penetration especially with the arrival of the sub-10, 000 category would boost the market as well.

“India currently has about 100 million internet users, about 10 per cent of the overall population, which means there is a huge unexplored market,” Goel said.