It shall be great leap for communication in the country. Telecom users will soon be able make calls from their personal computers with Internet connection to a land line or a mobile phone and vice versa, if a TRAI recommendation in this regard finds acceptance with the government. The suggestion by the telecom regulator, if accepted, will further boost competition in the domestic long distance segment and may lead to fall in STD tariff. "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 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) through public Internet for the purpose and the two service providers would have mutual agreement for the same. The move will permit calls from personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones. At present, a voice call can travel between two computers but not from a mobile or a fixed phone. This is expected to open channels of huge revenues for ISPs. 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.

TRAI said, "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," With a view to make Internet telephony secure, TRAI said, all ISPs interested to provide unrestricted Internet telephony would install "Lawful Interception" equipment.

Cellular operators oppose TRAI's recommendations

On the other end, Cellular operators fiercely opposed telecom regulator TRAI's recommendation to allow internet service providers to offer unrestricted internet telephony services, saying it would be against the basic principle of level-playing field. The GSM operators lobby COAI Director General T V Ramachandran demanded that there should be level playing field and that telecom regulator TRAI's recommendations are against the very basic principle of level-playing field since they allow unrestricted internet telephony to ISPs at no additional cost.

The existing UASL/BSO/CMTS operators have obtained access license after paying a huge entry fee which is as high as Rs 1,650 crore for all India. In February, access licenses have been issued by the Department of Telecom upon payment of Rs 1,650 crore. Many of the new applicants are still awaiting allotment of spectrum to start the service. Against this backdrop, it is very unfair to allow unfettered access to ISPs. COAI has also claimed that ISPs should be required to migrate to UASL license. However, welcoming TRAI's suggestion Internet Service Providers Association of India President Rajesh Chharia said the telecom operators should not treat ISPs as competition. "We acts as resellers of the services...the move is likely to lower the tariffs by 50 per cent which will encourage more people to use the service."

Meanwhile, IT industry body NASSCOM also welcomed the move and said that the step is likely to benefit the country's BPO sector.