Let’s Talk Commitment

Last
week I met a person at a seminar on metropolitan area networks.
The discussion moved from networking equipment to IP telephony.
The gentleman pointed out that despite ban, IP telephony was
being practiced in India and he had himself made a few calls to
get a feel of it. He furiously pointed to the dangers that lay
ahead if it was not allowed and encouraged in India.

What was surprising was
that the gentleman was a very senior DoT official. But his was
certainly not an isolated case. Many Government officials
believe that the ban on IP telephony is self-destructive and
cannot be implemented.

Such instances leave you
wondering. Is that the kind of faith the Government has in its
own policies? What commitment levels are we witnessing within
the policy makers? Clearly, though the ban might remain, it’ll
not be seriously implemented. And like many other laws, this one
will also become a tool for creating problems for users. There
have already been some reports where telephone department
officials have been harassing small Internet outfits.

Communications, which is
not regulated by geographical boundaries and time, is the need
of the hour. Many Indian business houses and entrepreneurs want
to exploit this opportunity. IP telephony offers just that, and
at a fraction of the cost. This ban will deny the cost benefit
to Indians. Public telephone companies in countries like the US,
Finland and Germany are already offering this.

A huge opportunity will be
lost if we refuse to take notice of this. There might be those
large corporate houses, which might stop making STD/ISD calls
and use IP telephony over their private networks. By allowing
it, we might have many Indian companies offering these services,
earn revenues, and create jobs.

The ban might keep VSNL’s
register ringing in the short run. But, as a law it is bound to
end up as joke with very serious negative ramifications for the
entire Information Technology industry. In the long run this
will not prove beneficial. It might force entrepreneurs and
innovators to even break the law. We already have some small
operators in India offering IP telephony products and services
openly on the Internet.

One gentleman that I spoke to refused to
even accept that there was a ban on it. So much so for the
industry’s perception! One wonders that if the industry is not
serious, and if the government is not convinced, why have the
ban in the first place! Or are we again talking of banning
smoking in public places?