Trai to Not Place Regulatory Measures for In-Flight Tariff in Indian Airspace

A new report has come up which informs that a top official said that Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) would not regulate the tariff which air passengers will pay for making calls and browsing the Internet in-air. Although, it won’t be the case for mobile phone operators, sector watchers and aviation experts, as they said that there was some dependency on the intermediaries and thus the revenue will be miniscule compared to the investment which will be required to make in-air telecom services possible, one reason for this will also be the short routes of domestic flights.

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As per a report by ET, RS Sharma, Trai Chairman said “Tariffs are under forbearance in the entire telecom sector and it (in-flight connectivity) will not be an exception. We will not govern it, but will keep it under forbearance.” Although he did not comment on what the pricing for in-flight services could be, we know that the talks related to the issue are in full momentum.

As the existing rules dictate, it is the responsibility of the multinational telcos to act as intermediaries between airlines and Indian telcos while offering in-flight connectivity (IFC) services.

The provision of in-flight connectivity (IFC) services will be a very structured business with the international telcos acting as in intermediaries between the Indian telcos and the aircraft-companies. The abovementioned top official also said that “Telecom operators managing a local earth station will have to get arrangements with international service providers and not with airplane companies directly so that flights while entering into Indian aerospace will start getting signals.”