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Businesses Communications

Telecom Companies in India Want Tech Firms To Pay For Network Usage (techcrunch.com) 77

Telecom operators in India, the second largest wireless market, would like internet companies to compensate for using their networks, a recommendation they've made to the local regulatory body, echoing a viewpoint that is gaining some momentum in other parts of the world but also stoking fears about violation of net neutrality. From a report: Jio, India's largest telecom operator with more than 450 million subscribers, recommended to the local regulator that internet companies should be made to "contribute" towards telecom network costs based on the traffic they consume, their turnover and number of users.

"We suggest that TRAI [India's telecom regulator] should recommend for OTT providers contributing in the network development and building a backbone for the country. In this effort, the Other OTT service providers should also be required to pay their fair share," said the unit of Reliance, which is run by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani. Reliance, which carries 55% share of India's total data traffic, contends that requiring internet companies to compensate for network usage will ensure a level playing field. Jio said there is a "near consensus" among telecom operators across the globe on this subject.

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Telecom Companies in India Want Tech Firms To Pay For Network Usage

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  • Yeah, nup (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @04:24AM (#63824358)

    It's the same answer you get when any telecom anywhere in the world tries this flawed argument: your subcribers are the ones consuming the bandwidth, not the big tech companies, and the subscribers are the ones paying for connectivity.

    If you think you need more money to upgrade your shitty networks (instead of paying massive dividends to shareholders) then try putting your plan prices up... and see what happens.

    • Yet, another telecom claiming that the companies and people it serves are a burden. The purpose of the telecom company is to provide service, not to complain that people are using its services.
    • You don't understand. It's obvious that they will make the subscriber part free. We'll have free Internet from then on, it's a good deal!

  • It's the same the world over. Telecoms "invest" in building infrastructure.
    THEN they want consumers to pay more to ACCESS that same inrastructure bot NOT TO USE it. Think 0Mbps and 0GB/mo.
    THEN they want consumers to pay to USE that data (think 100Mbps and 5GB/mo)...
    AND they want that same data paid for by the other side of that pull/push transsaction.
    and as if that's not enough
    if it's your business model to have data people want, then you're "big tech" and should totally reimburse them for having built th

    • by dutt ( 738848 )

      Spot on.

      I used to work in telecom and this was basically the reasoning. The so called "Over The Top" big tech companies were seen as raping the telcom operators of their lucrative business and in the end someone had to pay for the brand new infrastructure investments.

      • by redback ( 15527 )

        They should be viewing big sites as suppliers, not customers.

        They sell data to customers. They get that data from the tech companies. You don't bill your suppliers for moving their product.

  • They already do (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dragonslicer ( 991472 ) on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @05:32AM (#63824430)
    Internet companies already pay for their bandwidth, just like every other customer of an ISP.
    • Yes, but they're paying a DIFFERENT internet service provider, they should ALSO be paying the internet service provider that their customers are using to access them, at least according to ISPs.

      Imagine if you shipped a package and paid the shipping fees, but when the recipient goes to pick it up, they have to pay again to receive the package - this is how our Internet fees work as of today. But then the receiving company says "Hey, we should be getting some of that 'shipping' money, too, as our customers
      • They do, they pay a differential based on up/down ratios.

        The telecom companies are fully compensated for the data already today. They'd have all gone out of business otherwise a long time ago.

        The current set up doesn't let them play too many games with the backhaul rates, so the executives don't get one-off bonuses that they can game the shit out to get every year.

  • <Sarcasm>Wow, the people in India are lucky since they must have free Internet if the telcos need to charge Internet companies.</Sarcasm>
  • by Tom ( 822 )

    So the guys have driven themselves into a corner with flatrate offers and price wars, and now expect that someone bails them out, yes?

    Tell me again how we don't like socialism. When companies have stopped being bailed out, and rescued with taxpayer money constantly, or like these bastards, essentialy try to run a protection racket - "nice website you've got there. Would be such a shame if nobody could visit it anymore..."

  • If the telecoms provider wishes to be able to charge the tech firm for traffic flowing through their lines, then the tech firm should be able to charge the telecoms provider for each request it receives from their lines. The telcos would all very quickly change their minds as their profits would then dwindle even further.
  • And tech companies in turn will raise their prices to telecom companies.
  • They have it backward. On one side you have content consumers, on the other side content providers. In between telecom providers transporting content and making profit from this transaction. Presently both content providers and consumers pay fees to telecom providers largely exceeding the transport costs.
    In an ideally regulated world, what would be correct and better for all is that telecom providers charge the effective transport costs plus reasonable margin (20%), while content consumers pay a reasona

    • by redback ( 15527 )

      Exactly. They should be viewing content providers as their suppliers. They supply the product that the ISP is selling to the customer.

  • Asia's richest man, with 55% of the market, promises to level the playing field.

  • Would you expect Walmart to start charging every delivery truck that delivers goods to their store? I mean, Walmart has to have a receiving dock and staff to handle deliveries. Walmart's customers can't be responsible for all of these shipping costs. Certainly, there cannot be any cost of doing business for Walmart, so trucking companies must pay.

    Yeah, it is as dumb as it sounds.

  • At the risk of treating a vast populace like Indians with a single brush, India's per capita annual income is... $2400? With 450M subscribers, a significant portion of the population is accounted for, so perhaps this generalization isn't totally flawed.

    Champagne tastes on a beer budget. How much more do you think can be extracted from folks falling in the middle? Probably not a lot. So asking the users to pay for it not generally helpful even if it makes logical sense. Given that the providers of these stre

    • Wouldn't the profits that the streaming service providers (SSP) are making in India, have to come out that same $2400 as well? Either ways, Indians have to pay for what they consume. ISPs are merely saying, who ever is at the other end of the pipe making money by what ever means, that money belongs to us.

      • The user already pays for all of it. If you assume the user's costs will not increase, then it's a push-pull over dividing that revenue. The ISP is saying, "If you want this gravy train to stay on the tracks, help us out."

        • by ukoda ( 537183 )
          If they want to "stay on track" they should charge their customers what it costs to provide the service plus a margin. If they can't make a profit doing that then they should get out of the business. Likewise if streaming service providers are paying the ISP for a connection the ISP can charge what they like. If they are not their customer then they have zero grounds to charge them.

          Think about it, the service providers are only sending data that the ISP's customer asked for, so that data usage is the
          • You have a very narrow definition of "business". It's perfectly normal for parties "around" the purchaser to make deals. Especially when actions by all parties are necessary for the purchaser to relinquish their money.

            • by ukoda ( 537183 )
              Sure, if you are a business you are wise to narrow your focus to what is important, if you want to make a profits. There is no business relationship between the tech service providers and Indian telcos. The proposed change tries to artificially enforce a business relationship when none exists, nor should exist. To make a deal "around" purchasers there needs to be a benefit to both parties. What motivation is there for the tech service providers to make a deal with Indian telcos? The Indian telcos have
              • "There is no business relationship between the tech service providers and Indian telcos.

                But there is. It's a dependent one. The telcos have to keep pace with the population growth and rising user base, and maintain services levels that allow the streaming services to continue to add users without saturating the networks. If they don't do that, the users may find their streaming is unreliable or disrupted, and not only would the streamers not grow their user base, they could see it shrink.

                Not all business r

    • by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Saying "Given that the providers of these streaming services are generally profitable, it's not unreasonable to ask them to cover some of those costs." makes it sound like those service providers have free Internet connections. While, as high users, they will be getting a better rate they still have to pay for their connection, just like you and me. To say "it's not unreasonable to ask them to cover some of those costs" misses the fundamental point, you are asking them to pay twice for the same thing. It
  • End users don't actually want their money to pay for advertising traffic, so it seems fair for tech companies to pay for any end user bandwidth they use for ads. That probably accounts for 90% of bandwidth anyway!

    • use an ad block.

      • If only it were that easy. Web sites these days are getting more insistent that you turn off your ad blocker software to access their content. And they are also writing additional code to work around ad blockers. I use AdBlockPlus, and there's still a whole lot of stuff that gets through.

    • by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Actually many user don't mind ads and are happy to pay for them if it means free access to a website. Others find them really annoying and use adblockers. If your adblocker doesn't work you either suck it up and accept the extra data usage or go to a different website.

      None of what said justifies charging tech companies a second time to send the data. The tech companies paid their ISP to send those ads so what you are saying is pure and simple double dipping.
      • Ha! Different website! As if you could just exchange one site for another. "Gee, too many ads on facebook, I think I'll switch to...uh...instagram, or maybe TikTok, or...oh wait, they ALL have ads.

        By the way, I don't mind a reasonable amount of static ads. But when you have videos everywhere, that autoplay, and start playing sound if you so much as hover over them, or jiggle and dance trying to get you to look at them...there are limits.

        None of what said justifies charging tech companies a second time to send the data. The tech companies paid their ISP to send those ads so what you are saying is pure and simple double dipping.

        I disagree. I don't buy bandwidth so advertisers can send me their vide

  • Jio said there is a "near consensus" among telecom operators across the globe on this subject.

    Well, their is "near consensus" among software developers too, that they all badly need a 100% pay hike.

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