The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has come up with the point of over-the-top contribution in creating and developing the telecom infrastructure in exchange for using telecom services.
In a letter to the telecom secretary, any entity that creates an infrastructure by investing the money to take usage charges including rent or lease charges from the users of the infrastructure.
COAI is of the opinion that government must provide a framework for the service providers to charge users for services used. It also suggested levying the “usage charge” for the traffic carried on the telecom network and added that the charge must be agreed upon mutually between the TSPs and OTT Players.
In case, if both parties do not agree on the agreement then a Licencing and Regulatory framework governs the process. It comes as a suggestion to the government to the addition of OTT communication services under the new draft Telecom Act. The core purpose of doing this is to store a level playing field. Additionally, to support MSMEs and small enterprises related to OTT, COAI also added that the limited to the total network used.
