Daybreak - The big takeaways from Telecom Bill 2023

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

More than a year after the communication minister Ashwini Vaishnav had introduced a the draft version to the public, on Thursday, the Rajya Sabha passed the new Telecom Bill. Many hopes were pinned on it considering it was meant to replace the three archaic laws that had been governing India’s telecom sector. The journey until here, however, was far from smooth. The draft version of the bill had left the industry divided and it actually received a record 900 comments. After many revisions, the bill has been passed. And while it enables structural changes that will empower telecom users and simplify complicated processes such as licensing, it also raises a some serious concerns.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. Yesterday, the Rajas Sabha passed a new telecom bill. This comes a little more than a year after the Communication Minister of India, Ashwini Weishnav, had introduced it as a draft version to the platform.

public. Many hopes were pinned on it, especially because it was meant to replace the three archaic laws that had been governing India's telecom sector. One of them actually goes back to the year 1885. Now, it's not like they're exactly the same as they were more than 100 years ago. Of course, there have been many amendments that have been made to include telephones and digital data communication. But the laws still fall short in some very important areas like user rights and how complaints are addressed. So when the draft bill came, the response was overwhelming, though it left the industry kind of divided.

It received a record 900 comments. But the criticism of some of the provisions in the bill was widespread. And it came from everywhere, normal people, telecom companies, and even from within the government. Very soon, Minister Ashwin-Veveshna was seeing going to great lengths to make clarifications about the draft bill. And finally, after a lot of to and fro, the bill was passed by both the houses recently. Now, at this point, it is good to remember that this happened when most of the opposition

members were absent from the parliament owing to their suspension. So today I'm going to take you through some of the important highlights from the new Telecom Bill of India. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm a host Nick Dharma. I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, thrice a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday, the 22nd of December. To begin with a little bit of context, let us briefly look at why we needed a new bill in the first

place. The main idea behind introducing this new bill was to replace the old three laws that I spoke about. In spite of the amendments and additional provisions, these laws simply could not provide the kind of regulatory framework that is required to keep up with the constantly changing technology. The other aim of this new draft was to empower users. Even after all these years, Indians still do not have access to a proper mechanism for grievance redressor when it comes to telecommunication. For example, imagine you got an inflated postpaid for. phone bill. You call your service provider, but you're not satisfied with their resolution. So you take up the matter to Try or the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Guess what Try tells you? And I'm quoting this from the Try webpage. The Try Act of 1997 does not

envisage handling of individual consumer complaints by Tri. Consumers are advised to take up their complaints with their respective service providers. Complaints, if any, received in try are forwarded to the service providers. No follow-up action. is taken by try on individual complaints." End quote. No follow-up action is taken on individual complaints. Something had to be done and this bill was long coming. But when the draft version of the bill was introduced, it ran into some problems.

And one of the most controversial provisions in the bill involved bringing OTT communication services like WhatsApp, Telegram and Skype under the same licensing conditions as telecom service firms. It was supposed to bring in more accountability, but it also gave the government more power over these platforms. The Global Affairs President of Meta, Nick Clegg, had told the Economic Times then that including the likes of WhatsApp and Skype

under the same framework as telecom service providers was like comparing apples to pairs. The other point of contention in the bill was related to try. The bill sought to enhance the communication ministry's powers and almost override try. In any way, for many years, the Department of Telecom has consistently been ignoring Tri's recommendations. The third provision that caused a fair bit of controversy was how the bill allowed the

ministry to write off dues owed to the government by private or public entities. Even Reliance Geo posed this. In fact, this is probably the only cause that made the telcos unhappy. Eventually, the government had to backtrack on all. of these and after quite a few revisions, we now have the final version of this bill that was passed in the Parliament by both the houses. So what is this new bill all about? Stay tuned to find out.

The new bill wants to bring in a bunch of structural changes to the regulatory framework that is currently in place for the telecom sector. From simplifying the licensing regime, a more transparent spectrum assignment to stronger consumer redressel and also also much stricter user verification rules. The most important highlight that has been at the centre of much debate right now is how it allows the government to temporarily take control of telecom services in the interest of national security. The bill says, and I'm quoting, on the occurrence of any public emergency, including disaster

management or in the interest of public safety, the central government or a state government or any officer specially authorized on behalf of the central government or a state government, if satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so, by notification, take temporary possession of any telecommunication service or telecommunication network from an authorized entity. End quote. Also, the bill has mandated telcoes to carry out biometric authentication of their users to stop fraud. For obvious reasons, this has also raised concerns about the the privacy of users. On the other hand, though, the bill also empowers telecom consumers to hold companies accountable. One way is by protecting users against spam calls and also messages by imposing

strict penalties. The other key highlight is that the bill wants to simplify the current licensing regime for telecom networks by moving towards an authorization system. The way that it works right now is that Telecom Department has to issue more than 100 types of licenses, registrations and permissions. The bill now seeks to bring all of them together into a single authorization process. Also, the bill has made way for a non-auction route to allocate satellite spectrums like Elon Musk's Starlink and Amazon's project quipper through the administrative method. Also, administrative allocation will be done for sectors like metro rail, community radio, defense, railways and the police.

For non-satellite spectrums, auctions will continue to be the preferred norm. The bill also allows the government to take back spectrum that is unutilized for insufficient reasons and it also opens the door for sharing, trading and leasing of spectrum. Companies will now be able to surrender unused spectrum but they will not receive payment from the government for it. And one of the main issues of contention about the bill that has been clarified is around regulating OTT apps. Even though in the original draft, OTT was mentioned as a telecom service, it has been removed in the final bill. But there are still some concerns about whether or not the bill conclusively exempts platforms like WhatsApp, signal and telegram from its ambit.

And that is all for today, dear listener. Before I sign off, here is my question for you. Do you think that the concerns about the government having the power to take over a telecom service is valid? Write to me at Snigda at the rate, the ken.com. It is S&I, GDHA, at the rate the he-ken.com. If you're listening to this on Spotify, you can also vote on the poll that I've added to the show notes. And by the way, no episode on Monday. wish you all a very, very merry Christmas.

Thank you for tuning in and I will catch you again on Wednesday. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters, subscriber-only apps and podcast extras. Head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. I am Sniqa Sharma, your host, and today's episode was edited by my colleague Rajiv Sien.