Telecom, Broadcasting Sectors To Benefit From TRAI's EoDB Recommendations: BIF

The recently announced TRAI Recommendations on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Telecom and Broadcasting sectors are extremely comprehensive and greatly facilitating, which is welcomed by the industry, as it will aid in the healthy and rapid growth of the Digital Economy, Broadband India Forum (BIF) said in a statement.

According to the BIF, “During the last three decades, the telecom sector has undergone rapid technological changes, with almost three generations of technology evolution having taken place. There has also been a remarkable transformation in the ‘Space’ sector during the same time, which is necessitated changes in the complex and time-consuming procedures and processes, many of which were associated with the past legacy and have become obsolete or irrelevant over time and needed to be done away with.”

TV Ramachandran, President of BIF said, “Coming on the footsteps of the recently announced Space Policy 2023, these proposed reforms in Ease of Doing Business, along with the new Space Policy, are likely to give a big boost to the entire Satellite Communications & Broadcasting sector.”

The suggestions made by the regulator for ease of doing business (EoDB) in the telecom sector include reducing the heavy compliance burden on the operators, simplifying the verification process for licence fees and spectrum usage charges, granting critical and essential service status to submarine cable laying and repair, and a single window portal for inter-departmental and/or inter-ministerial clearances-all of which are extremely progressive steps.

There are some recommendations made by the Regulator for the Department of Space (DoS) including, Process of hiring space capacity from DOS to be fully integrated with the portals of DoT or MIB and made completely transparent through an online process.

Recommendations also mention about the stage-wise status of the application is to be made transparently visible to the applicant and timelines for each stage should be clearly defined.

It also suggests permitting long-term agreements with satellite operators and DoS to publish a roadmap detailing the schedule of the launch of communication satellites and the availability of the domestic satellite capacities in India to facilitate the service licensees to plan and optimise their capacity procurement.

Broadband India Forum is an independent policy forum and knowledge-based think-tank that works for the development and enhancement of the entire broadband ecosystem in a holistic, technology-neutral and service-neutral manner.