Govt’s public Wi-Fi plan bypasses licensing framework, say telcos
NEWDELHI: An ambitious government plan to expand Wi-Fi connectivity will breach the Telegraph Act, hurt massive investments made by big telcos and distort the level playing field, the country’s top telecom association said. The plan, recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), aims to create a light-touch licensing regime for the proposed ‘public data offices’ (PDO) to sell internet services.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said the Trai suggestions, which the government has accepted, seem to suggest a non-level playing field as these PDOs will not pay any licence fee or spectrum usage charges while licenced operators, i.e. the big telcos, continue to pay regulatory levies. The letter comes at a time when the department of telecommunications is pressing ahead with its plan to boost internet connectivity, and is readying a ₹10,000 crore tender to float public Wi-Fi hot spots. DoT aims to provide 1 gbps connectivity to all gram panchayats by 2020 and 10 gbps by 2022, apart from deploying 5 million public Wi-Fi hot spots by 2020 and 10 million by 2022.
“...the proposal to sell internet services without a licence will be a complete bypass of present licencing framework, detrimen- tal to massive investments already made in spectrum, telecom infrastructure and services,” the letter dated 5 July said. Mint has seen a copy of the letter.
The Telecom Commission, the highest decision-making authority at DoT, on 1 May accepted Trai’s recommendations on setting up PDOs, which will sell small data packs starting at ₹2. DoT believes this will also create village-level entrepreneurship and employment opportunities through a new category of service providers—PDO aggregators (PDOA). Trai had in March last year suggested PDOAs may be allowed to provide public Wi-Fi services without any specific licence for the purpose but subject to specific registration requirements, prescribed by DoT, which will include obligations to ensure e-KYC, authentication and record-keeping requirements are fulfilled by the PDOAs.