New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reportedly rejected the highly unpopular demand from telecom operators to ask companies that run apps like WhatsApp and Skype to share their revenues with them and the government.
This comes as a major blow to network operators claiming to be suffering from annual losses of around Rs 5000 crore due to non-regulation of such applications.
The furor erupted earlier this month when big carriers in India including Idea, Vodafone and Airtel demanded that TRAI ask makers of these apps – WhatsApp, Viber and Skype – to pay them dividends of their revenue because they are used on the Internet data provided by these operators. That’s because with the current scenario, their income from SMS services has decreased a great deal.
Indian mobile phone service providers, that have invested billions of dollars in creating networks, want over-the-top-players (OTTPs) to be regulated so that both parties operate on a level playing field. OTTPs are all apps that users download onto their mobile devices. Many subscribers use these apps rather than their telecom operator’s normal voice call and SMS service, eating into a carrier’s revenue.
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