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Monopoly by proxy

DoT may have lost ground in the ISP battle but it is keen to win the war. The latest salvo is to wrench complete control of VSAT usage.

The Department of Telecommunications has thrown another spanner in the private ISP works by planning not to allow Internet Service Providers to link up across the country using Very Small Aperture Terminals.

DoT officials discussing the matter at a meeting of the telecom commission

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felt that allowing such linkage would jeopardise their monopoly over long-distance services and so feel the guideline included in the new Internet policy should be removed. If that happens, ISPs would find themselves in big trouble.

The matter came up when the officials were considering the Indian Paging Services Association's demand that they also be allowed to link across the country through VSAT to reduce the number of leased lines they have to depend on.

IPSA had pointed out that since the new Internet policy allowed ISPs such links, why should they be discriminated against. So the officials felt the association had a point there and so is deciding to withdraw the facility from the ISPs too.

That might not have been quite what the paging operators were seeking. They actually were expecting that they too would be allowed to clamber onto the VSAT bandwagon since they had promised only to transfer data over the links. However, telecom commission felt that since it had no method in place to monitor whether voice or data was being carried over the VSAT links, the paging operators could misuse the service.

-Compiled from the Indian media

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