“TRAI is the authority which believes in unbundling,” said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) chairman Dr. P. D. Vaghela during the authority’s open house discussion on August 23, 2023. “We want that more players should come, [and] the services should be unbundled. There should be democratization of services and new services should come,” he went on to say. What was odd here was that this open house discussion was centered on TRAI’s convergence consultation where it discussed the convergence of carriage of broadcasting and telecommunication services. So in a discussion on “converging” the regulation for broadcasting and telecom services, TRAI argued that it wants services to be unbundled. So what is unbundling? Unbundling with respect to telecom means the use of a company's infrastructure by another. So instead of one company having all the things they need to provide phone and internet services, they can ask other companies to share some of their resources, like wires that have already been laid out and have access to a consumer's house. In 2021, TRAI published a list of recommendations for the Department of Telecommunications where it suggested unbundling licensing by creating a new class of telecom entities called “access network providers”. These companies would have the job of letting other companies use their infrastructure, like the wires and equipment, to provide phone and internet services. The statement made by Vaghela in the open house discussion (mentioned above) was in line with these recommendations. Article continues below ⬇, you might also…
