At a time when telecom operators CEO’s in
India are lobbying with the Telecom Regulator
TRAI to regulate OTT (Internet based services),
Facebook has signed up to become an
associate member of the Telecom industry
association COAI.
After the NDA government came into
power, COAI Director General Rajan
Mathews was quoted in The Hindu as saying
that telecom operators feel they need “a
revenue sharing arrangement between the
over-the-top service providers and telecom
service providers. COAI Members believe there
is a crucial need to initiate dialogue and work
with the Government of India on this
issue”. The COAI has also prepared a white
paper on OTT services (read this; we couldn’t
find the white paper online, and have asked
COAI for a copy). Yesterday, the TRAI held a
seminar to understand whether an
arrangement can be arrived at between
Internet services and telecom operators.
We spoke with Ankhi Das, Director & Head of
Public Policy, Facebook India, about why the
company joined the COAI, and their views on
COAI’s push for regulation of Internet services:
MediaNama: We’re trying to understand
why Facebook has joined COAI, and what
are your views as a member of the COAI on
their lobbying efforts, asking the regulator
to set up a revenue sharing arrangement
between OTT and operators.
Ankhi Das: Our primary goal is promoting
access and we have to work with lots and lots
of people in the industry because we can’t do
it on our own. We have joined COAI as an
associate member, not a core member of the
COAI. If you look at the associate membership
category of COAI, it includes a range of
companies from big-tech: there’s IBM, all non
operator based companies who have an
interest in mobile technology. We have joined
that category of associate members. You and I
both know that in all industry associations you
have different varieties of firms that become
members and at times members agree, and at
times they don’t agree. Even in IAMAI, there
are firms that agree and those who don’t. You
work towards resolving those differences, and
you reserve the right to disagree.
Our entire approach and philosophy is: how do
we work with different parts of the industry to
improve access. There has to be an alignment
of incentives for everybody, because different
people are making different types of
investments, in terms of ensuring that access
happens. It’s a fact of life that though there is
85% of cellular coverage, only 30% people
have access to the Internet. There’s a huge
gap, and the infrastructure is not keeping
pace. How do you de-bottleneck some of these
areas. We are more interested in working with
operators on advocating on partnerships on
things that are common like spectrum sharing,
more public investment, and those kind of
areas. To bring down the entire discussion into
OTT and Operators and revenue sharing is very
myopic and small. The main question that
needs to be asked is: what are the alignment of
incentives which need to happen.
So what are companies like Facebook doing – I
think Google is doing the same. We are
investing a huge amount of our engineering
resources on the data compression side so
there is efficiency and data is delivered faster,
cheaper and better, and we are all serving the
same goal in terms of promoting access. In my
conversations with Rajan Mathews and Vikram
(COAI), we’ve always talked about broad basing
the alignment of incentives.
The entire framing needs to change. It’s very
reductive to say OTT. We are applications. We
thrive on the Internet, whether you, me or
NDTV.com. I hate to call it OTT. Bharti Airtel
can create its own WAP site through which
they can push data. Everyone is playing in the
app economy. We need to change the
conversation to talk about applications, for
newspapers, health and others. Our focus is to
engage in these bodies and broaden their
horizon.
MediaNama: What is your take on the
telecom industry CEO’s going to TRAI, and
COAI including a revenue sharing
arrangement between telecom operators
and OTT as a part of their agenda for the
government? Should the government get
involved in this? It happened in Broadcast
where the TRAI formalized carriage feeds
between distributors and broadcasters. Do
you want government intervention?
Ankhi Das: That is not something that we
support. We are signatories to various industry
papers, and we’ve had a public position on this
consistently. I think the Internet ought to be
free. That position will never change. That
position is never going to change. It is free, it
ought to be free. I doubt how much receptivity
is there to these ideas. These are just bad
ideas.
MediaNama: The TRAI organized a seminar
full day seminar yesterday, which is
probably a pre-cursor to a consultation .
Ankhi Das: I think these are difficult issues in
front of the entire ecosystem. You need to
discuss this. It’s better to have a discussion
than none at all. I do not grudge or
misunderstand the need or the anxiety for
these discussions. There is just no
transparency, and how do we engage? I don’t
have a problem with consultations or
discussions. It helps all the viewpoints come
out, and it better than doing something
sneaky, behind the scenes. How do we engage
without such forums? I don’t have a problem
with consultation and discussions. It’s only
through participation in these consultations
and associations, where we can have these
points of view on the table. We need to look at
the ecosystem, and not these narrow,
traditional mindset, but look at the how the
applications economy is going to evolve, and
these are the kinds of innovations and
investments we are making to make the data
services more efficient. How can we go and
advocate together on other promisory
instruments?
MediaNama: As an associate member of the
COAI, what sort of representation powers
do you have when you’re not a core
member, which is a position only open to
telecom licensees?
Ankhi Das: That is a question on scope, and
how COAI will deal with harmonising these
different points of opinion. It’s a question best
left to, in terms of reconciliation of positions,
you should direct to the COAI. In terms of
forums, COAI has an associate members
committee, and that’s the committee which we
are members of. It will be fair to compare
COAI with TIA, and they are similar. It is an
interesting evolution for them.
MediaNama: But at the same time, when
they’re going and representing a telecom
operator point of view, like they have, your
membership adds credence to their claim.
Ankhi Das: We don’t sign up to those
representations. That would apply to all
associate members who would have interests,
and who have application layers. They may not
be a social media layer, but they have
application layers and services. I would contest
that, because it’s not an automatic support
position. we cannot stop engagement. We
cannot stop dialog: we need to engage and
educate. That is our philosophy. The sector has
to grow by focusing on access, and that is
going to happen through an alignment of
incentives. OTT’s – and first of all I hate that
word, and we’re all applications on the
Internet – we are innovative applications, and
by regulating applications, you are absolutely
killing innovation. Who knows what is going to
come out tomorrow. Imagine if the sector
were to be regulated: how can we even
conceive what is going to come out. http://www.medianama.com/2014/08/223-facebook-india-telecom-coai-lobby/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+medianama+%28Medianama%3A+Digital+Media+In+India%29
India are lobbying with the Telecom Regulator
TRAI to regulate OTT (Internet based services),
Facebook has signed up to become an
associate member of the Telecom industry
association COAI.
After the NDA government came into
power, COAI Director General Rajan
Mathews was quoted in The Hindu as saying
that telecom operators feel they need “a
revenue sharing arrangement between the
over-the-top service providers and telecom
service providers. COAI Members believe there
is a crucial need to initiate dialogue and work
with the Government of India on this
issue”. The COAI has also prepared a white
paper on OTT services (read this; we couldn’t
find the white paper online, and have asked
COAI for a copy). Yesterday, the TRAI held a
seminar to understand whether an
arrangement can be arrived at between
Internet services and telecom operators.
We spoke with Ankhi Das, Director & Head of
Public Policy, Facebook India, about why the
company joined the COAI, and their views on
COAI’s push for regulation of Internet services:
MediaNama: We’re trying to understand
why Facebook has joined COAI, and what
are your views as a member of the COAI on
their lobbying efforts, asking the regulator
to set up a revenue sharing arrangement
between OTT and operators.
Ankhi Das: Our primary goal is promoting
access and we have to work with lots and lots
of people in the industry because we can’t do
it on our own. We have joined COAI as an
associate member, not a core member of the
COAI. If you look at the associate membership
category of COAI, it includes a range of
companies from big-tech: there’s IBM, all non
operator based companies who have an
interest in mobile technology. We have joined
that category of associate members. You and I
both know that in all industry associations you
have different varieties of firms that become
members and at times members agree, and at
times they don’t agree. Even in IAMAI, there
are firms that agree and those who don’t. You
work towards resolving those differences, and
you reserve the right to disagree.
Our entire approach and philosophy is: how do
we work with different parts of the industry to
improve access. There has to be an alignment
of incentives for everybody, because different
people are making different types of
investments, in terms of ensuring that access
happens. It’s a fact of life that though there is
85% of cellular coverage, only 30% people
have access to the Internet. There’s a huge
gap, and the infrastructure is not keeping
pace. How do you de-bottleneck some of these
areas. We are more interested in working with
operators on advocating on partnerships on
things that are common like spectrum sharing,
more public investment, and those kind of
areas. To bring down the entire discussion into
OTT and Operators and revenue sharing is very
myopic and small. The main question that
needs to be asked is: what are the alignment of
incentives which need to happen.
So what are companies like Facebook doing – I
think Google is doing the same. We are
investing a huge amount of our engineering
resources on the data compression side so
there is efficiency and data is delivered faster,
cheaper and better, and we are all serving the
same goal in terms of promoting access. In my
conversations with Rajan Mathews and Vikram
(COAI), we’ve always talked about broad basing
the alignment of incentives.
The entire framing needs to change. It’s very
reductive to say OTT. We are applications. We
thrive on the Internet, whether you, me or
NDTV.com. I hate to call it OTT. Bharti Airtel
can create its own WAP site through which
they can push data. Everyone is playing in the
app economy. We need to change the
conversation to talk about applications, for
newspapers, health and others. Our focus is to
engage in these bodies and broaden their
horizon.
MediaNama: What is your take on the
telecom industry CEO’s going to TRAI, and
COAI including a revenue sharing
arrangement between telecom operators
and OTT as a part of their agenda for the
government? Should the government get
involved in this? It happened in Broadcast
where the TRAI formalized carriage feeds
between distributors and broadcasters. Do
you want government intervention?
Ankhi Das: That is not something that we
support. We are signatories to various industry
papers, and we’ve had a public position on this
consistently. I think the Internet ought to be
free. That position will never change. That
position is never going to change. It is free, it
ought to be free. I doubt how much receptivity
is there to these ideas. These are just bad
ideas.
MediaNama: The TRAI organized a seminar
full day seminar yesterday, which is
probably a pre-cursor to a consultation .
Ankhi Das: I think these are difficult issues in
front of the entire ecosystem. You need to
discuss this. It’s better to have a discussion
than none at all. I do not grudge or
misunderstand the need or the anxiety for
these discussions. There is just no
transparency, and how do we engage? I don’t
have a problem with consultations or
discussions. It helps all the viewpoints come
out, and it better than doing something
sneaky, behind the scenes. How do we engage
without such forums? I don’t have a problem
with consultation and discussions. It’s only
through participation in these consultations
and associations, where we can have these
points of view on the table. We need to look at
the ecosystem, and not these narrow,
traditional mindset, but look at the how the
applications economy is going to evolve, and
these are the kinds of innovations and
investments we are making to make the data
services more efficient. How can we go and
advocate together on other promisory
instruments?
MediaNama: As an associate member of the
COAI, what sort of representation powers
do you have when you’re not a core
member, which is a position only open to
telecom licensees?
Ankhi Das: That is a question on scope, and
how COAI will deal with harmonising these
different points of opinion. It’s a question best
left to, in terms of reconciliation of positions,
you should direct to the COAI. In terms of
forums, COAI has an associate members
committee, and that’s the committee which we
are members of. It will be fair to compare
COAI with TIA, and they are similar. It is an
interesting evolution for them.
MediaNama: But at the same time, when
they’re going and representing a telecom
operator point of view, like they have, your
membership adds credence to their claim.
Ankhi Das: We don’t sign up to those
representations. That would apply to all
associate members who would have interests,
and who have application layers. They may not
be a social media layer, but they have
application layers and services. I would contest
that, because it’s not an automatic support
position. we cannot stop engagement. We
cannot stop dialog: we need to engage and
educate. That is our philosophy. The sector has
to grow by focusing on access, and that is
going to happen through an alignment of
incentives. OTT’s – and first of all I hate that
word, and we’re all applications on the
Internet – we are innovative applications, and
by regulating applications, you are absolutely
killing innovation. Who knows what is going to
come out tomorrow. Imagine if the sector
were to be regulated: how can we even
conceive what is going to come out. http://www.medianama.com/2014/08/223-facebook-india-telecom-coai-lobby/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+medianama+%28Medianama%3A+Digital+Media+In+India%29