The Telecom Commission [Upper decision making body of the DoT] which came under criticism from outgoing TRAI Chairman, Mr. Misra has said that they will take up the following recommendations of TRAI for implementation.
- VoIP – VoIP calling within India is currently il-legal. However, ILD VoIP is legal and TRAI has recommended to open the sector internally. If VoIP within India is legalized, then we will be able to terminate our calls from PC on your mobile or land line. With interconnect fee expected to go down, VoIP within India will be much cheaper than current NLD rates of Rs 1 / minute.
- Inter Operator STD / NLD – Currently Indian telecom users don’t have a choice on choosing their NLD operator but by default access the service from their service provider. TRAI has recommended that the user be given a choice so that an Airtel subscriber can use a Reliance Calling Card to complete his STD calling
- IPv6 – Indian telecom has been reformed late, a blessing in disguise. With 5.45 mn broadband subscribers and 45 mn active internet users in India, it is still far that India will run out of IPv4 blocks but TRAI wants us to migrate to IPv6 before the last hour
- NIXI – national Internet Exchange of India came into force to route internal traffic efficiently. Since its implementation, TRAI wants DoT to benchmark and measure its effectiveness.
Upon accepting recommendations from TRAI in partial or entirety by the telecom commission, DoT will implement the same. So lets hope VoIP calling becomes legal within India in 2009.
Tags: Telecom India, VoIP India, IPv6, Broadband India