GSM lobby unhappy with voice over Net

The GSM association is not happy with the opening of voice market to Internet Service Providers (ISP). But the GSM lobby’s stand may not find too many takers, given the potentially huge consumer benefits. In its recommendations, Trai pointed out that this benefit to consumers and ISPs comes ‘‘without impacting access providers due to increase in the telephony call volumes’’. ISPAI president Rajesh Chharia points out: ‘‘The step enables customers to make domestic and international calls to mobile and fixed line users at a fraction of the current costs. This will help dramatically increase India’s internet and broadband penetration, allowing Indians to take advantage of technological advancements by moving towards a truly converged environment.’’ ‘‘We expect the government to implement these recommendations in entirety. Internet telephony in India could become the killer app for broadband penetration which has sadly lagged far behind the very successful mobile telephony in India,’’ added Chharia. ‘‘Voice transmission over internet was permitted ‘from PC to PC’ and ‘from PC to a phone’ internationally. This move will allow voice transmission over internet for a ‘PC to phone in India’, which will benefit the BPO industry to a large extent,’’ Nasscom said in a statement. However, the eventual success of this recommendation depends upon DoT’s willingness to implement Trai’s recommendation without introducing an additional entry fee burden or cumbersome interconnection rules for ISPs.