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Mumbai: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI ) has set a clear definition of “ international traffic ” as SMSs either originating or terminating from computer servers and applications from outside India. TRAI's introduction of the definition of international SMSs under the Unified License has put an end to a decade long debate between telecom operators and multinational corporations (MNCs). Until now, MNCs were processing international transactions from servers outside of India but sending SMSs from domestic systems.
India’s telcos said this was a way for MNCs to avoid paying almost a 20 times higher cost for delivering messages which were originating overseas. Advt According to the new definition, “Any incoming application to person (A2P) SMS message shall be treated as an international SMS message, if it cannot be generated, transmitted or received without the use or intervention of any electronic device, computer system or computer application located outside India," TRAI said in its recommendations released Tuesday. Back in August 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had written to TRAI that under the current unified license agreement, there is no explicit definition of domestic or international SMS.
TRAI then released a consultation paper in May 2023, seeking industry views on the subject. The sector regulator had noted that only two components to domestic traffic – intra-circle and inter-circle – were defined under the unified license, and therefore, there was no need for an explicit definition for domestic traffic. But ‘ international traffic ’ needed a separate definition.
The bone of contention lies in transactional messages sent by multinational companies to their customers because of the price arbitrage. Telecom companies charge Rs 0.13 per SMS for domestic messages versus Rs 2.
3 (or nearly 20 times) for international ones. Therefore, telcos loose substantial revenue if international messages are routed through domestic channels. Advt For instance, the orders are generated on international servers and then transferred to respective India servers before the Indian servers send the message, making it a "domestic" transaction.
However, the telcos contended that since the point of origin for the communication is beyond Indian borders, these transactional messages can be sent under the international route. ET Bureau Published On Dec 11, 2024 at 07:35 AM IST Telegram Facebook Copy Link Be the first one to comment. Comment Now COMMENTS Comment Now Read Comment (1) All Comments By commenting, you agree to the Prohibited Content Policy Post By commenting, you agree to the Prohibited Content Policy Post Find this Comment Offensive? Choose your reason below and click on the submit button.
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