TRAI Issues Draft to Repeal Regulation on Dial-Up Quality, Leased Line Internet Access Service

Telecom regulator TRAI on Monday issued a draft to repeal the regulation on quality of service of dial-up and leased line internet access service.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that there are no dial-up subscribers now and high-speed broadband services are being provided through optical fibres, wireless technologies such as 4G. 

"Authority decided to repeal the Regulation on quality of service of dial-up and leased line internet access service, 2001 (4 of 2001) with effect from the date of its notification in the Official Gazette," the draft said.

TRAI has sought comments on the draft by April 17.

The regulation on quality of service of dial-up and leased line internet access service, 2001, was notified with the primary aim of specifying the quality of service benchmarks to be achieved by the service providers, ensure customer satisfaction with the network performance and to protect the interests of subscribers of the internet service.

Under these regulations, no performance report submission by the service provider was subscribed. 

This regulation is applicable to all the Basic Service Operators and Internet Service Providers, including the incumbent operators viz BSNL, MTNL and VSNL. 

It has been noticed that these regulations were issued when the dial up service was the only service available for accessing low speed internet. With the passage of time, the telecommunication networks both wireline as well as wireless have evolved to offer high speed broadband service on xDSL, FTTH, LTE, etc, technologies.

Whereas the leased line access services are generally offered by Internet Gateway Service Providers (IGSPs) holding an ISP licence to enterprises, is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) based service. Being SLA based service, the agreement among the contracting parties has sufficient provisions to safeguard concerns regarding service quality, said the Ministry.