The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that new-age startups or innovators should be helped by providing them with funds. Some tech, which may not be able to attract private money, may have the potential to bridge the digital divide and bring socio-economic benefits.
Funds under Digital Bharat Nidhi (commonly known as the Universal Service Obligation Fund), can be used to support pilot projects, consultancy assistance, or the introduction of telecom services, technologies, and products.
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“Some innovative products that may have significant potential to bridge digital divide and bring socio-economic advancement to underprivileged sections may not be able to get sufficient funding from market sources,” said TRAI in the consultation paper titled, ‘Encouraging Innovative Technologies, Services, Use Cases, and Business Models through Regulatory Sandbox in Digital Communication Sector.’
The decision to allocate funds will lie with the authority governing the Digital Bharat Nidhi. This move will ensure that innovators in any part of the country can work and bring new technology to the market with sufficient funding and testing to give it a fair chance to succeed and bring a good change in society.
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TRAI further said that the government should immediately adopt and implement a regulatory sandbox in the digital communication sector. Regulatory sandboxes (RS) allow real-time but regulated access to telecom networks and customer resources to test out new technology more extensively. However, this is not possible with the conventional methods of lab testing and pilots.
Getting access to real network environments and other data of telecom networks to help test the reliability of new applications before bringing them to market will be a major help to the innovators. It will ensure that whenever a technology is released commercially, it comes with the potential to scale and be a success.
