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TOP
STORIES |
Thursday, January 03, 2002
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Govt
looks set to okay VoIP for national long distance calls
Neeraja
Kumar in New Delhi
Government is considering allowing national long distance (NLD)
operators to offer less than toll quality services as well,
after Internet telephony opens up in April 2002.
Guidelines for international long distance (ILD) service providers
— which are being finalised right now — also allow service providers
to offer less than toll quality of service in addition to regular
service.
According to Union minister for communications Pramod Mahajan,
“With the opening of Internet telephony, there is a possibility
of permitting less than toll quality service within the country.”
This will further bring down the charges for making NLD calls,
which were slashed by nearly 60 per cent late last week. Internet
telephony is scheduled to be legalized from April 1, 2002 and
is expected to have a drastic impact on the over-inflated ILD
call charges.
Mr Mahajan said that the issue of extending less than toll quality
service to NLD service providers was “discussed with chairman,
Telecom Commission, wherein it was decided to wait till the
recommendations for Internet telephony are received,” he added.
“While the Quality of Service (QoS) is within the mandate of
TRAI but the licensor (Department of Telecommunications) can
always issue directions in public interest,” explained Mr Mahajan.
After less than toll quality services are allowed, NLD operators
can use technologies like the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
to give a cheaper alternative to the economy customer. Customers
who are prepared to pay a premium for a better quality of voice,
can opt for the traditional route of making calls. Those who
are willing to compromise on quality to get through cheaper,
can go for the less than toll quality services.
As industry sources point out, people will anyway start making
national and international long distance calls using their computers,
as soon as Internet telephony is allowed. Therefore it makes
sense for the government to let the NLD offer less than toll
quality services, to extend the technology benefit to poor customers
as well, they added.
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