Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea will be very happy with one aspect of the draft telecom bill 2022. All three telcos had started facing a lot of competition from OTT (over-the-top) communication applications. Apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and more gave consumers the ability to make voice calls over data without any geographical bounds. This meant that consumers no longer needed to worry about international calling charges. All that the consumers needed was an active internet connection which the telcos were providing them at a very affordable cost.
All the telecom operators were pretty dissatisfied about the fact that they are being regulated heavily and asked to pay licensing fees along with other charges/levies for offering communication services, while the OTT communication applications were free from all of that. What bummed the operators even more was that their low-cost internet was enabling the growth of OTT communication applications which meant more consumers would soon stop using default voice apps and mobile networks for making voice and video callings. It is a potential pain point for the revenues of the operators.
Consumers can even use Wi-Fi networks to keep calling through WhatsApp and more applications. But the newly introduced draft telecom bill 2022 brings into the prospect of regulating OTT communication apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal. How this regulation would be implemented would be detailed by the government. It wouldn't necessarily be like the way the telcos are regulated at the moment, but it would bring a lot of new elements into play for the OTT communication apps.
The government isn't doing this to invade the privacy of the consumers. But this is being done to ensure that their security is maintained. The consumers must know whom he/she is getting a message or a call from. Since the OTT communication apps are not regulated yet, there's a lot of scope for scams through them.
Jio, Airtel and Vi will be happy to see that the government is trying to create a level playing field for everyone. The telcos wanted for this to happen for a long time. Right now, the consultation process on the draft telecom bill 2022 is going on.
