New Delhi, Aug 18: In a decision, which could have a far reaching consequence in future, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday allowed Intenet Telephony in India. In view of TRAI’s decision, the fall in long distance telecom tariffs has now become inevitable. The TRAI ruling permits one to make calls from personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones.

"It is envisaged that customers will ultimately benefit from cost effective and innovative internet telephony service. These recommendations will put Indian telecom sector in tune with global trends.

The grey market tendencies shall be curtailed," TRAI said in a statement. As per the TRAI recommendations, the STD service providers would be connected to ISPs through public internet for the purpose and the two service providers would have mutual agreement for the same. Earlier, voice call made from one computer could travel to another computer but not from a mobile or a fixed line phone.

This has opened huge channels of revenues for the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who wouldn’t need to acquire a Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) for operating these services. The Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), a technical arm of Department of Telecom, will work out the number plan for the ISPs to enable them to offer telephone services.

"Telephone numbers from identified blocks shall be allocated to ISPs, Unified Access Service Providers, Basic Service Providers and Cellular Mobile Service Providers for internet telephony," TRAI said.With a view to make internet telephony secure, TRAI said, all ISPs interested to provide unrestricted internet telephony would install "Lawful Interception" equipments.

Presently, ISPs are not permitted to provide unrestricted Internet Telephony though they have IP-based infrastructure. The decision is also likely to benefit telecom service providers like Vodafone and Idea, who don’t have national long distance licence/network and use other operators’ networks to carry long distance calls. These operators can carry their NLD calls using their IP network.

While access service providers are permitted to provide various services and applications to their subscribers under Universal Access Service License (UASL), the role of other licensees like NLD and ILD is limited to provide long distance services and ISPs are permitted for internet access."Such regulatory restrictions discourage technological advancements and result in grey market activities to provide these services to common masses," the statement added.TRAI said due importance have been given for level playing to various service providers, interconnection mechanism, inter connect usage charges, numbering, lawful interception, emergency number dialling, interoperability, quality of service and others."Overall licensing framework has been protected while permitting unrestricted internet telephony to ISPs" TRAI said. The new TRAI ruling is also likely to boost competition between established UASL holders such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, Vodafone and BSNL.

The ISP’s and the telecom operators have been at loggerheads with each other on this issue, with the operators asking for a level playing field. BSNL had pointed it out to the regulator that allowing ISPs will further erode the revenues earned by national long-distance licence holders, while Bharti and RCom had pointed out that in case connectivity between PCs to fixed and mobile phones is allowed, ISPs should be asked to migrate to UASL.

Telecom players have to shell out Rs 1,650 crore for a pan-India UASL, while ISPs pay token Re 1 as the licence fee and the ISPs providing PC to PC telephony have to pay 6% of their adjusted gross revenue. The ISP’s however, say that the Rs 1,650 crore fee includes the start-up spectrum cost as well, which will not be used by the ISPs while providing the connectivity between PCs and fixed and the mobile lines. They have also suggested a formula in case they are allowed terminating the ILD calls.