1st Draft Of National Telecom Policy Released, $100 Bn Investment Planned By TRAI!

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI has released the first draft of hugely anticipated National Telecom Policy – 2018. Besides an investment of $100 billion, TRAI wants to generate 20 lakh additional jobs in the ICT industry.

In a related news, Reliance Communications, which had stopped their operations last year, is refusing to refund money to their subscribers, who had some balance remaining in their account.

Recommendations for National Telecom Policy – 2018 Released

TRAI has released the first draft of National Telecom Policy – 2018 and has asked the general public to share their inputs and feedbacks.

In their recommendations for National Telecom Policy – 2018, TRAI said,

“Based on preliminary discussions with various stakeholders including telecom service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers, industry associations, consulting firms, cloud service providers etc.; the Authority has prepared inputs for formulating the National Telecom Policy – 2018 in line with the technological advancements in the sector and customer aspirations for digital services.”

TRAI wants to invest $100 billion for improving and upgrading telecom services in India by 2022 and wants to generate 20 lakh new jobs for ICT industry.

Besides, TRAI wants 90% of the population to use and avail telecom services, and make the services for affordable, world-class and technologically advanced.

In their report, TRAI said that by 2022, 1 billion Internet of Things/Machine-to-Machine sensors/devices would be connected, thereby creating a massive network of smart devices.

5 million public WiFi hotspots by 2022 have been proposed by TRAI, to provide high-speed Internet connectivity in every nook and corner of the nation. Besides, TRAI aims to connect all Gram Panchayats with high speed, 1 Gbps Internet speed by 2022.

Focussing on data protection, and data encryption, TRAI said,

“To put in place a flexible, robust data protection regime powered by a strong encryption policy by 2019 and to establish a policy framework for facilitating setting up of data centres by 2019,”

You can find the entire report of recommendations for National Telecom Policy – 2018 here.

RCom: We Don’t Want To Return Money!

Meanwhile, Anil Ambani led Reliance Communications, which has stopped providing telecom services, is now refusing to pay back the balance of their ex-subscribers.

TRAI had earlier ordered RCom to refund the remaining balance of subscribers, which RCom is now asking to reverse.

RCom, in their letter to TRAI seeking to reverse the money backorder, has cited Mobile Number Portability Regulations 2009, under which it is stated that in case a customer ported out of a service, the remaining balance lapse.

TRAI’s officials are saying that the directive to refund money is justified.

An official said,

“The situation is not similar to general port out by a consumer, where the consumer chooses the timing of porting out from one network to another network. Here, a service provider has closed services and therefore protection of consumer interest is a must”

As per TRAI’s January 19th order to RCom, the refund is “pursuant to the closure of 2G/GSM, CDMA services and discontinuation of voice services in all the licensed services areas by Reliance Communications Limited (RCL) and Reliance Telecom Limited”.

We will keep you updated as more details come in.