India’s telecom regulator, TRAI has classified Google Talk, Yahoo! Voice Chat and other innovative VoIP applications as Grey Market operations and maybe cracked down. The report says [PDF] VoIP can also pose a threat to National Security. Good Grief!!! Looks like Mr. S.K. Gupta is following the footsteps of Mr. Failure President of the USA to invoke National Security clause on everything. If you can’t monitor with advanced monitoring system, just block them and let consumers suffer is TRAI’s mantra. Indian Govt has plans to build an Advanced Web censoring system, but the need of the hour is much more than they plan 🙂 Persosnally I am an advocate of Free Market and encourage people to use VoIP phones, evident from my posting on this forum 🙂
TRAI has also recommended revamping and restructuring of ISPs in India. Of the 389 registered ISPs the top 5 control 86% of the market. TRAI has proposed a fees and revenue share arrangement to eliminate the non-serious ISP license holders. If you are looking for an ISP license this is the best time to get one. Here is a list of ISPs in India and their subscriber numbers. [PDF]
Tags: VoIP, Broadband India, Internet India, Telecom India