TRAI messed up telecom industry leading to duopoly; regulators were not even able to regulate OTT yet; and now Artificial Intelligence has come and needs regulation! Certainly, challenging time to be regulators in India. And price will be paid by customers/society.
One reason why telecom operators failed and shut shops in India was TRAI/govt allowing mobile Messenger Apps like WhatsApp to allow customers to make "free calls" to anyone, even overseas, at zero fee to telecoms. It was highly unfair to telecoms and resulted in "data" driven business model which only new operators like Jio were designed for. Old operators failed miserably and closed shop. It resulted in duopoly and bad deal for customers can be easily seen in telecoms cancelling billing model and forcing customers to buy "unlimited plans" which not everyone needs. An entire industry ecosystem was disrupted, and this is not even discussed in a free economy.
Telecom regulator TRAI should make policies 'inclusive' which promotes multiple operators since competition is good for consumers; make policies which also allows telecoms to be able to charge customers enough to be able to make profits; and during auctions, do not just focus on raising as much money as possible since once of the reasons telecoms went bankrupt was higher spectrum prices they had to pay during auction.
More than telecom regulation, it is OTT regulation which is critical. Absolutely bad language is being used and indecency is shown in OTT content just because there is no censor board reviewing the shows. Last OTT show I watched is Shahid Kapoor starrer 'Bloody Daddy' and it had absurd level of foul language used.
It is high time Indian regulators should fix the telecom industry policies immediately, bring OTT under regulation urgently and then explore ways to regulate/restrict AI.
- Rahul
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