Telecom Commission clears new telecom policy

NEW DELHI: Telecom Commission, the highest decision-making body in the telecom ministry, has approved the new telecom policy and net neutrality recommendations in a meeting on Wednesday, among other proposals.The National Digital Communications Policy, which aimed at creating new jobs and getting investments of more than $100 billion into India by 2022, will now be taken to the Cabinet for final approval, after the department pored over more than 1000 views from different stakeholders at the review stage. The new policy formulation comes at a time when the sector is confronting financial difficulties, with debt of nearly Rs 8 lakh crore. Revenue and profitability of operators have come under severe pressure amid brutal competition accelerated by the entry of aggressive newcomer Reliance Jio. This has also lead to rapid consolidation through the mergers, acquisitions and exits in the sector. The policy was open till May-end for views of stakeholders and the public, and officials said, more than 1000 comments had come in, which were being reviewed by the department. 64948193 Part of the deliberations in the upcoming meeting were also on the hotly-debated topic of net neutrality, recommendations for which were made by the regulator and were approved as they were by the Telecom Commission. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has backed principles of a free and open internet and prohibited discriminatory treatment of content and practices such as blocking, degrading, slowing down or granting preferential speeds or treatment to any content.Trai had, however, allowed fast lanes for specialised services that DoT must define, and permitted telcos to use traffic management practices to maintain the quality of service. It also kept ‘content delivery networks’ out of the ambit of net neutrality.India's stand on net neutrality also came at a time when the US had repealed its free internet rules and chose to allow internet providers to charge more for certain content or giving preferential treatment to certain websites through commercial agreements.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2L759CV