Is VoIP a threat or an opportunity for India's service providers?

Gagandeep Kaur, Contributing Editor

August 23, 2016

3 Min Read
The VoIP Dilemma of India's Telcos

India's service providers have come under pressure following the publication by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) of a consultation paper on voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services, including Internet telephony.

The telcos have been calling for regulation of VoIP apps, which bypass traditional voice services and can result in lower revenues for operators. The Cellular Operators Association of India , which represents GSM services providers in the country, recently complained in a letter to the TRAI that VoIP apps like WhatsApp, Viber and Skype are violating the existing telecom licensing regime and are just riding over networks owned by telecom companies. Previously, the COAI had insisted that app-based VoIP calls do not conform to telecom license terms and also pose security risks.

"With the advancement of technology, Internet telephony has now become similar to conventional telephony and these providers compete directly with the existing PSTN TSPs [public switched telephone network telecom service providers]," said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in its consultation paper. "Therefore it eventually has to be decided what aspects of conventional telephony regulation should apply to Internet telephony service. To encourage Internet telephony services in the country, issues such as allocation of telephone numbers, interconnection, interconnection usage charges and access to emergency service need to be addressed urgently."

Even though data revenues are rising for most of India's service providers, voice still contributes more than 80% of total sales. Yet the growing popularity of VoIP apps, especially WhatsApp, Facebook and Viber, poses a threat to this business. As the quality of the calls improves, more and more subscribers are likely to make use of them.

"Earlier, when the regulator worked on VoIP services regulation, there was a pushback by the government, but this time the consultation paper appears quite comprehensive and is timely," says Amresh Nandan, a research director at Gartner India.

Want to know more about 4G LTE? Check out our dedicated 4G LTE content channel here on Light Reading.

The change in regulation is also required to facilitate voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) calls, which all the main service providers plan to introduce. The hope is that VoLTE will lead to improvements in call quality and a reduction in costs, allowing operators to better compete against the over-the-top players offering Internet telephony services. Reliance Jio , a new 4G player owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is spearheading the move toward VoLTE, believing it can use the technology to differentiate itself from other telcos.

"The challenge is whether we have the relevant provisions for delivering VoIP services by traditional network-based CSPs [communications services providers]," says Nandan. "In addition, service providers would need better quality data networks for VoIP and that is yet to be realized in India. Nonetheless, once VoIP is allowed, it will seriously impact the revenues of all telcos."

— Gagandeep Kaur, contributing editor, special to Light Reading

Read more about:

Asia

About the Author(s)

Gagandeep Kaur

Contributing Editor

With more than a decade of experience, Gagandeep Kaur Sodhi has worked for the most prominent Indian communications industry publications including Dataquest, Business Standard, The Times of India, and Voice&Data, as well as for Light Reading. Delhi-based Kaur, who has knowledge of and covers a broad range of telecom industry developments, regularly interacts with the senior management of companies in India's telecom sector and has been directly responsible for delegate and speaker acquisition for prominent events such as Mobile Broadband Summit, 4G World India, and Next Generation Packet Transport Network.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like