DoT seeks TRAI suggestions to promote other service providers

The department of telecommunications has asked the regulator to prepare and recommend steps to encourage proliferation of entities under the Other Service Provider (OSP) category, an official familiar with the development told Moneycontrol.

"A reference has been received from DoT on OSPs. It came around ten days back," the official said.

Business process outsourcing companies and those operating call centres come under the other service provider category. Tele-banking, tele-medicine, tele-trading, e-commerce are other service providers that operate by using infrastructure provided by various access providers for non-telecom services.

Network operation centres and vehicle tracking systems also come under this category. OSP registration is also used by entities providing work from home opportunities.

OSPs do not need a separate licence to operate these services. They simply need to register themselves with the Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring cell of the DoT. DoT has TERM cells in each state and OSPs just need to register themselves in the state they are present in.

Under the existing framework, the responsibility of ensuring that an OSP has valid registration papers rests on the access service provider the OSP is using the services of.

DoT's reference to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is an attempt to further the cause of the government’s new telecom policy approved last month.

The government's National Digital Communications Policy, 2018, aims to attract $100 billion investment in the digital communications sector by 2022. It aims to provide broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen by the same year. It seeks to provide fixed line broadband to 50 percent of households.