Not locking horns with OTT players: Akhil Gupta

New Delhi:Bharti Enerprises Vice Chairman Akhil Gupta has said that the telecom operators are looking at ways to work with over-the-top (OTT) players such as Skype, Viber,What's App.

"Our revenue streams are moving towards data services. Telecom industry is all for innovations among OTT and it is most welcome. It will be wrong to project...that telecom operators are against OTT," Gupta said on the sidelines of Convergence India 2015.

Of late, telecom operators had expressed their concern over free applications like WhatsApp, Viber, etc, Skype, and said that there should be a level-playing field between the telcos and the OTT players.

The company had last month decided to charge separately for Internet -based voice calls provided by mobile applications by after drawing falk from the public the telco back-tracked its move.

Right now, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is working on a consultation paper to examine level playing field for OTT and telecom operators.

Gupta said: "How it (OTT services) can work in environment that is cohesive, and its complimentary, will be subject matter of this consultation. Let it be an open consultation like all consultation processes of TRAI."