“We propose a Broadband Infrastructure Levy to be applied at 3% of India operations to VNOs [virtual network operators], significant OTT communication service providers and significant OTT video service providers to contribute to the Broadband Infrastructure Fund,” researchers V Sridhar (IIIT-Bangalore), Rohit Prasad (Management Development Institute), and Mansi Kedia, (ICRIER, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) said in their submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) consultation on the regulation and selective banning of OTT communication platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. They suggest that this ‘3% levy’ should be net of the revenue earned on the basis of specialized contracts between telcos and OTT service providers. They justify this argument by citing that the European Parliament recently ruled in favor of a policy framework that would call on big tech companies to contribute to telco’s capital expenditure. They mention that in Korea, under the ‘Netflix Law’ content providers that attract an average of more than 1 million users per day and account for 1% of Korea’s internet traffic are responsible for ensuring network stability and pay a fee to cover network use. In a soon to be released interview, MediaNama’s Editor Nikhil Pahwa quoted this section of this submission to Professor Kyung Sin Park, co-founder and Executive Director of www.opennetkorea.org. To this, Park responded, “that part must be a mistake or mistranslation,” he added that “the ‘pay a fee’ [section],such [a] phrase is not in the law.” The researchers aren't the only one to mention…
