Dept of Telecom (the licensor) is considering the possibility of bringing local and national long distance (NLD) calls using OTT apps such as Whatsapp & Viber under the ambit of licensing. However international long distance calls will remain exempted as per the report.
We believe it would be difficult to implement the recommendation under the current licensing framework. A change in policy is likely to lead to litigation. In an OTT scenario, a VoIP call and chat message are data streams with no underlying differences. Hence it would be difficult to define and regulate VoIP calls without a specific amendment to the current licenses. This would create a potential for litigation.
The best case scenario for incumbents is that OTT apps like Whatspp and Viber are required to take a UASL license which will then make them unviable. Another scenario is they are required to take an ISP license (which is cheap). The current ISP license is for internet services and the OTT companies will want an explicit approval from DoT that they can do VoIP calls using the ISP license. This is a possibility but it will not protect the incumbents' voice revenues - essentially a 'back-to-square-one scenario'.
