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New Delhi: Amid a push by Indian telecom operators to get a fair share in revenues from over-the-top (OTT) platforms, a senior Meta executive said the issue is “worthy of exploration” only if telcos don’t discriminate among OTT providers in reaching the end consumer. The executive, however, said no OTT provider has as yet entered into such a business relationship with an internet service provider , though conversations have taken place around concepts like slicing on a mobile network for applications like gaming. “As long as the cost is being borne by the consumer of a service that they (telcos) want to sell to consumers and they don’t discriminate among OTT providers in terms of reaching the consumer, then I think it seems like an area worthy of exploration,” Thomas Navin, director and global head connectivity policy, Meta said during a discussion at the recently-concluded India Mobile Congress .
Advt The comments assume significance as telcos across the globe, including India, have been seeking a share in OTT revenues. Telcos say OTT platforms are riding on their networks and earning revenues free-of-cost using infrastructure which telcos spent billions of dollars to set up. As per telcos, the large traffic generators (LTGs) need to contribute adequately/proportionately, based on a dynamic model to meet the demands and future modernisation of telecom networks.
As per industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), India isn’t looking as an isolated case in this regard, as globally, the demand for fair share is a key issue of contention with major economies like the US, EU, South Korea, Brazil and South Africa exploring solutions to tackle the issue. As per COAI analysis, telcos have invested an additional Rs 10,000 crore in 2023 to upgrade network infrastructure, primarily to handle the surge in data traffic from top LTGs. “But the revenue generated from this increased data traffic has been inadequate to cover the rising infrastructure costs,” it said.
This is in addition to the Indian government losing an estimated Rs 800 crore in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and taxes such as GST due to the revenue loss caused by the top 4-5 LTG apps, the industry body added. The Meta executive, however, said OTT platforms too have been investing in digital infrastructure, and between 2018 to 2021, they globally spent $120 billion in network investments towards distributing their products. Advt “We just invest in a different area and have a different business model, and we are not in competition with the ISPs for last mile connectivity.
..we deploy capital on subsea cable, data centres in different areas of our products,” he said.
Navin sympathised with the business models of Indian internet service providers but stressed that it would be a “bad idea” if a terminating monopoly like telcos is allowed to exploit it by holding up someone who is seeking access to that network. “I don’t think that it works particularly well when the innovations of the OTT providers or what consumers want and the reason that the bandwidth value is going up in terms of the utility to the consumer,” he said. On the US market, he said, by law they were required to remove implicit subsidies from the systems so that one service was not subsidising another service in a way that was hidden to consumers.
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