In a bid to provide cheaper bandwidth to IT companies, BPOs and Internet service providers (ISPs), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday issued regulation on domestic leased circuits. Operators provide DLC to connect two or more customer sites or customers to their own or other service providers networks.
The regulation imposes obligation on all service providers who have the capacity of copper, fibre or wireless, and who have been allowed under the licence to provide DLC, to share it with other service providers. It mandates them to confirm availability or otherwise to requesting service providers within 30 days.
?The regulations are expected to enhance competition, allow consumers a wider choice of service providers and make DLCs available at a reasonable price. For service providers, these regulations open up the possibility of meeting customers? demand for end-to-end leased circuits by obtaining DLC or local lead from other service providers if such need arises,? the regulator said in a statement.
The Telecommunications Tariff (Thirty Sixth Amendment) Order, 2005, prescribed tariff ceilings for DLC, based on the distance and the data rate.
Tariff ceilings for local leads and ports were also prescribed and the service providers were allowed to offer discounts on a transparent and non-discriminatory basis.
New entrants generally find it difficult to compete in leased circuit market because of non-availability of parts of DLC. On the other hand the existing service providers have legacy networks.
The regulation will ensure availability of national bandwidth at competitive price to ISPs for rapid growth of broadband service. Leased circuits are crucial building blocks for e-business, e-governance, Internet access, BPO and IT industry.