DoT against regulation of OTT services, except local voice calls

Via The Economic Times | Jul 02, 2015

A telecom department report on net neutrality has recommended against regulating
any over the top services or apps, but called for regulatory oversight on those o
ffering local voice calls similar to mobile operators. A six-member internal com
mittee of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in its report also suggeste
d a new law incorporating principles of net neutrality to replace the Indian Tel
egraph Act. The committee favours regulatory oversight on the communication servi
ce providers, reads the report. The committee believes that for (other) OTT applic
ation services (including those offering messaging and international voice calls
), there is no case for prescribing regulatory oversight similar to communicatio
n services, it said. The DoT panel pointed out that apps such as Viber and WhatsA
pp that offer local calling services over the internet don't have to follow regu
lations like mobile phone operators do, thus creating a non-level playing field
between two providers of similar services. The government will take a decision o
n the policy around net neutrality after public consultation and the telecom reg
ulator's recommendations on the subject.