Telecom Association Writes To PM Modi, Says Public WiFi Plan Breaches Laws, Will Hurt Incumbent Operators

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has said that the Centre’s ambitious public WiFi plan would be in violation of the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 which is law under which wireless communications in India operate. The association has also said that the proposal would disturb the level playing field and and hurt existing service providers, reports Mint.

The proposal, floated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) seeks to create a ‘light-touch’ licencing system for public data offices (PDOs) to sell their services. The letter to the PM has stated that PDOs by virtue of not having to pay any spectrum usage fee, will have an edge over others, thus resulting in losses to them.

The letter comes at a time when the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has increased its goal and is preparing a tender worth Rs 10,000 crore to set up five WiFi hotspots per gram panchayat across the country.

The Telecom Commission had accepted TRAI’s recommendations on 1 May, to set up PDOs that would sell small data packs with prices as low as Rs 2. The DoT feels that this would boost rural entrepreneurship and create employment opportunities at a village level. TRAI had suggested that PDO aggregators (PDOAs) be allowed to offer services without the requisite licence charges subject to the usual norms including record keeping and following know-your-customer (KYC) norms.

The COAI has alleged that setting up PDOs would be violative of the Telegraph Act under which services can be provided by either the government or an entity that has a licence.