The Telecom Authority of India on Monday recommended giving about 100 MB of monthly data free to rural smartphone users to support the NDA-Government’s efforts towards a cashless economy. This is expected to cost the exchequer around Rs 600 crore.
“The Authority recommends that a scheme under which a reasonable amount of data say 100 MB per month may be made available to rural subscribers for free,” the regulator said.
Affordable pack
It added that this was to bridge the affordability gap for persons residing in rural areas and to support the government’s efforts towards a cashless economy by incentivising digital means.
“The cost of implementation of the scheme may be met from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF),” Trai added.
Of the over 367 million Internet and broadband users in India, only 32.60 per cent are in rural areas.
As per TRAI data, the average charge per MB of wireless data is about Re 0.20 per MB. However, for bulk data packs some of the service providers in their latest offerings are charging Rs 1,499 for a 15 GB pack i.e Re 0.10 per MB. The scheme will therefore cost an amount of Rs.10 per subscriber per month.
“Even if we assume that rural subscribers account for 20 per cent of the smartphones users, the number of rural smart phone users is likely to be in the range 50-60 million...This would translate into to a cost of approximately Rs 600 crore to provide 100 MB of free data to 50 million users for a period of one year. However, considering the sharp decline in expected data prices, this scheme could be implemented at an even lower cost,” TRAI said in its recommendations.
Further, the regulator said the scheme for free data must be telecom service provider agnostic, and must not involve any arrangement between the service provider and the aggregator/content provider.
The free scheme, TRAI said, should not be designed to circumvent the guidelines on “The Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations,” which bans various forms of zero-rating models or schemes that provide free access to data services for subscribers of a particular Internet Service provider for accessing specific content.
“There is a need to introduce third party (aggregator) to facilitate schemes which are telecom service provider (TSP) agnostic and non-discriminatory in their implementation,” it said.
The aggregators, who should be a company registered under Indian Companies Act, 1956, need to register with the Department of Telecom. The validity of this registration will be for five years.
Not transferable
“The registrant shall not either directly or indirectly, assign or transfer the registration in any manner whatsoever to a third party either in whole or in part,” TRAI said. The authority has also recommended that the free data scheme should be implemented for a definitive period with a clearly defined time limit for each subscriber — free benefit for a fixed number of months for each subscriber.
“After the expiry of 100 MB of data in a month on a mobile connection, the free data services will be suspended till the beginning of the following month,” the regulator explained.
