Telecom regulator TRAI has constituted three subgroups in areas such as licensing, tariff and service quality, to identify and weed out obsolete regulations and orders.

The entire exercise is likely to be completed in the next 2-3 months, a senior TRAI official said.

The official, who did not wish to be named, said three advisors of TRAI — Sanjeev Banzal (Networks, Spectrum and Licensing), Vinod Kotwal (Finance and Economic Analysis) and Asit Kadayan (Quality of Service) — are heading the individual subgroups.

“The idea is to identify obsolete regulations that have outlived their purpose,” the official said.

The subgroups, which also include industry representatives, will jointly examine and identify regulations and tariff orders that are out of sync with the times.

One such area could be paging, where services and related regulations have become outdated and are no longer relevant. Similarly, there may be regulations related to technology such as CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), which may be looked at during the review.

Industry representatives from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Telenor and BSNL are some of the members of the subgroups.

Industry associations such as Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and ISP Association of India are also involved in the exercise.

Earlier this year, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma had said that once the regulations are identified through a joint exercise with the industry, TRAI will take up their suggestions along with other issues that have been identified for review this year.

Among others issues, TRAI will carry out public consultation in areas such as developing a new framework for tariffs in evolving the communication sector, next-generation public-protection and disaster-relief communication networks, review of national numbering plan and review of Universal Service Obligation Fund.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW