"Our belief is that circuit switched voice is far superior to voice over IP (VoIP) technology, and the current quality of services (of VoIP) does not compete with the circuit switched quality that we offer", Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania said during the company's Q4-FY15 earnings conference call. He also mentioned that the trend at this point in time doesn't suggest that VoIP will be able to take a larger portion of voice revenues, and the global trend doesn't suggest otherwise either. However, Kapania added that as they've mentioned in their submission to the TRAI, it is important that same type of services (VoIP vs voice) are governed by the same set of rules. He specifically stressed on the rules regarding consumer protection and security norms. Interestingly, in reply to TRAI's consultation paper one of the points Idea made contradicts what Kapania said in the earnings conference call: Proliferation of unregulated VoIP/Internet Telephony at a massive scale is leading to a significant disruption in the existing voice business of TSPs and would discourage TSPs capability and incentive to invest in infrastructure. It also needs to be pointed out that for the quarter ended March 31, 2015, Idea's revenues from mobile data contributed 16.9% to overall mobile revenues, as compared to 15.7% in the previous quarter and up from 10.1% in the same quarter last year. So, the other argument that telecom operators have been making against net neutrality - decline in revenue from traditional revenue sources not compensated by increase in data revenues…
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