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Pune: The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Broadband India Forum and the Asia Internet Coalition have opposed suggestions by telecom operators that over the top (OTT) services be licensed and regulated. They argue that these constitute an application layer that rides on the bandwidth provided by the telcos. Times Internet, which owns OTT platform MX Player, and Sony Picture Networks, which operates SonyLiv, also backed this stand.
"Identifying Rich Interaction Applications (RIAs) as comparable to telecom services is highly reductionist and unjustified," IAMAI has said in its submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). "Moreover, digital applications are not available to those telecom subscribers who do not have access to the internet."
The regulator had issued its Regulatory Framework for Over The Top Communications Services discussion paper in November last year, its second on the subject since 2015, asking whether a regulatory framework was required to govern such entities.
On January 10, ET reported that top telecom operators, including Reliance Jio...