COAI to regulate OTT platforms like Netflix , WhatsApp, and Amazon Prime
Q:
What is the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)?
COAI is an Indian telecommunication advocacy NGO that came about in 1995.
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Are organisations like COAI beneficial?
NGOs like COAI raise important issues which help starting new discourses around power balances and imbalances for example.
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Would there be restrictions on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime as well?
There are talks that OTT platforms which consume huge bandwidth such as Netflix, AmazonPrime, Voot will also be covered under the proposed legislation.
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What does the COAI do?
It acts as platform for telecom service providers to discuss various issues of interest. It interacts directly with Ministries, Policy Makers, Regulators, Financial Institutions and Technical Bodies to discuss various propositions and put forward their point of views.
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What is COAI’s aim?
COAI aims to support the advancement of world-class mobile infrastructure, products and services. It wishes facilitate this by continuing to provide local intelligence on current and upcoming policy, regulatory issues.
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What is the vision of COAI?
The vision of COAI is to ‘establish India as the global leader of innovative mobile communications infrastructure, products and services achieving a national teledensity of 100%, including broadband’.
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Who are the members of COAI?
The core members are comprised of Bharti Airtel Limited., Vodafone Idea Limited and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, operating across the whole country. The associate members include Amazon Seller Services Pvt.Ltd, Apple India, Facebook India Online Services Pvt. Ltd., Google India Pvt. Ltd., Nokia Networks, among others. To know more, check this this out.
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What are some initiatives by COAI?
Setting up of a 5G forum back in 2017 is one of the recent initiatives taken up by COAI. It also played a major role in setting up the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) under the National Skill Development Council (NSDC).
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What is the recent regulation suggestion by COAI?
All the major telecom players, via COAI, are seeking a level playing field in the OTT communications industry. COAI asked for the regulatory conditions and treatment to "be made uniformly applicable for similarly placed players". To facilitate this, there is a demand for a proper regulatory framework.
Q:
What is OTT in telecom?
OTT in telecom, sometimes called Telco-OTT, includes apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Zoom, GoogleMeet, Signal, etc which bypass conventional signal cables and use the internet to provide services such as calling and messaging.
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Why does COAI want a level playing field for both OTT and linear telecom service providers?
OTT telecos dont have to pay exorbitant levies and taxes in the form of license fees and other charges thus causing a loss to the government pockets. OTT also puts a lot of pressure on bandwidth thereby negatively affecting the network infrastructure.
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Are the regulations purely for monetary reasons?
Security concerns have been raised around data sharing on teleco OTT, thereby making a regulatory framework more important.
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Are there alternatives to the proposed regulations?
If a regulatory framework doesn’t seem like a lucrative idea, COAI suggests relaxing the regulations on non OTT players as well.
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How would the telecom OTT players get affected by a regulatory framework?
The OTT sites and apps will have to get KYC enabled and might have to procure licenses which would impact their total revenue.