Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman R S Sharma has said that apps should collect minimal data just as UIDAI does to give 12-digit Aadhaar numbers to people.

Some apps are ridiculously collecting more-than-required data and the customers are unaware of what is being done with it, he said.

In a move with far-reaching ramifications, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday said users owned their data, while entities in the digital ecosystem storing or processing such data were mere custodians. The authority said it was limiting its recommendations to telecom service providers (TSPs) as the larger issues on data protection for all sectors would be addressed by the committee headed by Justice B N Srikrishna.

The Telecom Commission, the highest policymaking body in the department of telecommunications (DoT), on Wednesday approved the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) with regard to net neutrality. With this, telecom operators who were constrained due to the regulator’s differential pricing regulation will get some leeway in pricing their value-added services in three areas — specialised services, content delivery networks and traffic management.

Telecom operators have opposed public wifi model recommended by the sector regulator Trai, saying it will adversely impact debt ridden industry and compromise national security.

Based on existing rules for cyber cafes, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended that a new set of players to be called Pubic Data Office Aggregator (PDOA) should be allowed to resell internet services through yesteryears PCOs type of set-up that will be called Public Data Offices.

Nearly two months after it sought the industry's views on the matter, telecom regulator Trai on Thursday prescribed amendments to the interconnect regulations, proposing certain changes in terms and conditions for an operator to seek fresh call connect ports from other telcos.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had sought views and comments from the industry by May 18 on these draft regulations.

Reliance Jio fared poorly in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) quality of service (QoS) norms which require a telco’s customer care centre to answer consumer complaints within a stipulated time.

Jio’s performance on this count has been found wanting for two successive quarters — October-December 2017 and January-March 2018 — as it did not meet the laid down criteria across all the 22 circles.

The Madras High Court has ordered the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to re-do the charges it has fixed on the access facilitation and others, as its assessment of factors to arrive at these charges lack transparency. The telecom regulator has to arrive at new charges in six months, ensuring transparency. The order was issued in appeals filed by Tata Communications and Bharti Airtel against a single judge order, which upheld the Trai’s decision on the tariff. The matter pertains to a complex technology and technical equipments by which various communication service providers in India are linked to the rest of the world by way of submarine fibre cables, which run beneath the sea.

Keeping its vigil on service quality in the sector, Trai has imposed penalties on leading operators, including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, for failing to meet various Quality of Service benchmarks in the December quarter, according to a source.

Around Rs 31 lakh fine has been imposed on Reliance Jio, the newest entrant in the telecom sector whose aggressive offerings have led to a bruising tariff war in the market.

The below-cost pricing in the telecom sector continues to take its toll, with the industry’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) declining 7.4% Q-o-Q and 12.6% Y-o-Y to Rs 35,697 crore during the January-March quarter of 2018, which is also the industry’s worst performance in the last five years.

According to Trai’s latest revenue collection numbers for the period, even though the gross revenue (GR) rose 1.82% Q-o-Q to `62,198 crore, it fell 1.76% on a year-on-year basis.

MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm reiterated its backing for the regulator’s decision to slash the interconnection usage charge (IUC), saying it removes an “artificial tariff hurdle” and will lead to quicker adoption of advanced technologies like Voice over LTE (VoLTE).

The IUC cut “…not only removes the artificial tariff hurdle with floor price but also allows faster adoption of more efficient technologies like VoLTE, as erstwhile legacy networks are nearing obsolescence,” the Mukesh Ambani-owned telecom company in its annual report.

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