Revenue sharing between apps, telcos will violate net neutrality: IAMAI

Any framework that may lead to revenue sharing between over-the-top players and telecom operators will violate net neutrality norms, industry body IAMAI said on Thursday.

In its submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said revenue-sharing mechanisms would essentially mean charging twice for the same service as consumers already pay telecom service providers (TSPs) for the data they consume.

"Any 'collaborative framework' which may result in establishing a revenue-sharing mechanism between OTTs and telecom service providers (TSPs) will violate the net neutrality framework notified by the Ministry of Communications in 2018," IAMAI said.

The pending Telecom Bill also floats the idea of bringing OTT services under the ambit of telecom licenses, as per the draft that was put for public consultation.

"Such demands are based on the erroneous notion that OTT service providers consume bandwidth, and disregard the fact that not OTT players but consumers themselves independently transact and purchase data from TSPs," IAMAI said.

The industry body has made submissions in response to the TRAI consultation paper on "Regulatory Mechanism for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services, and Selective Banning of OTT Services".

"Implementing revenue-sharing mechanisms would also mean adding a cost to accessing free or cheap content, which may eventually be passed onto consumers, thus raising the cost of internet usage," IAMAI said.

The industry body said that there are already robust regulatory frameworks for OTT services in India, and therefore there was no need to bring OTT service providers under any additional licensing or regulatory frameworks.

"Attempts to bring OTT service providers under regulations typically reserved for telecom companies fail to recognise that telecom service providers (TSPs) are subject to a special regulatory and licensing regime as they control valuable national resources such as spectrum. Therefore, the introduction of a telecom regulatory regime for OTT service providers would be an act of over-regulation," IAMAI said.