COAI: Mobile Tariff Hike Advocated Amid Rising Network Costs

COAI urges higher mobile tariffs due to the widening gap between network deployment costs and revenue. Recommends LTGs (OTT platforms) contribute to network upgrades. Spectrum cost reduction needed.

Call for Increased Mobile Tariffs

Telecom industry body COAI is advocating for increased mobile tariffs, citing a widening void in between network implementation expenses and income. Director General SP Kochhar highlighted that while federal government plans like Right-of-way are encouraging, excessively high costs from some authorities persist. COAI likewise recommends that big website traffic generators like OTT platforms need to add to network advancement costs.

Our expense of rolling out networks need to be lowered by a reduction in the rate of spectrum, levies and so on”There is a need to find means to make high network customers pay even more for the data. 70 per cent of the traffic which flows on our networks is by 4 to 5 LTGs (huge website traffic generators like YouTube, Netflix, Facebook and so on). Our need to the federal government is that they (LTGs need to contribute to the advancement of networks,” Kochhar stated.

Telecom industry body COAI has actually protected service providers’ call to enhance mobile tariff mentioning continual widening of gap in between their cost on network implementation and revenue earned by them in return.