ISPAI Mediates Settlement Between ISPs and ITSPs

Members of Internet Service Providers Association (ISPAI) have gotten around to talking out their problems regarding blocking of access by some service providers. In the Annual General Meeting of ISPAI that was held on September 20, 2002 members decided to form a consortium and ask international service providers--like Net2 Phone, DialPad, Delta3-- carrying traffic to different destinations to provide the Call Detail Record (CDR). The consortium would also appoint a third party to oversee the execution of the process and systems for sharing the CDR.

Based on the CRD, ISPs and ITSPs would be able to monitor the traffic coming on their networks and charge accordingly. This would also enable ITSPs to weed out the problem of grey Internet telephony to a large extent as the illegal call can quickly be traced and blocked. "Though this would only reduce the menace and not wipe out the phenomenon completely," pointed out Amitabh Singhal, Secretary, ISPAI. Members have not been able to come to any definitive conclusion regarding the time frame for the action plan as commercial considerations are involved and therefore would need to be before careful making any commitments.

One of the major issues that was holding the bickering players from entering into a revenue sharing arrangement was the lack of a billing system which would enable the CDR. This would now be sourced from the international service like Net2 Phone, which is the dominant player in the segment. "Once the arrangement with Net2 Phone is thorough, we expect other players to sign up as well," said PV Ramadas, VP, Technology, HCL

Infinet. 

He added that the problem of blocking access to ISPs by ITSPs is unique in India because the browsing time is low in India and service providers have to fight for every subscriber that comes to their network. Explaining the phenomenon, MC Chaube, General Manager, Value Added Service, MTNL said, "The issue is about customer care. Some of us have invested a lot in our infrastructure to provide good service. When a customer from a smaller player logs on to our site and accesses the IP services of another player through our servers, that customer is eating into our bandwidth and passing on the burden. While the ITSP provider gets the revenue from the minutes sold, its contribution to the maintenance of my infrastructure is nil. So why should I bear the burden of somebody else's traffic?"

It is due to this reason that some bigger players like Data Access, Satyam, HCL Infinet, etc. have denied access to rival ITSP sites. "Existing customers must not suffer due to the strain on the network from competing ITSPs," is the common refrain from all these players. This phenomenon of blocking access to rival service providers is not new to the ISP industry in India. Some time back, there was a hue and cry when VSNL stopped peering services with other ISPs because it was the dominant service provider. As a result, the Association has revived its initiative to set up a bandwidth exchange to contain the domestic traffic in the country.

(CNS)