Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in a note dated June 19, 2018 made some changes to India’s internet telephony guidelines.

DoT said access service providers can provide Internet telephony to the customers using Internet service of the other service providers. This is because Internet telephony services envisaged in the licenses is un-tethered from the underlying access network, DoT said in its clarification.

COAI, which represents GSM mobile operators such as Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone, said DoT has accepted TRAI recommendations on Internet telephony and has provided clarification that the internet telephony service is un-tethered from the underlying access network.

COAI had made representations to DoT on TRAI recommendations that Internet telephony service should not be un-tethered and should only be allowed under access service license wherein the licensee has its own network/internet service.

“The impact of this would be different for different consumers and operators, and consumers and operators would need to assess the impact of this individually,” said Rajan S Mathews, director general of COAI.

DoT’s Director (AS) RK Soni in a notification said the mobile numbering series should be used for providing Internet telephony by a Licensee. TSPs are allowed to allocate same number to the subscriber both for cellular mobile service and Internet telephony service. The access service licensee should use private ENUM in its network for telephone number mapping from E.164 to SIP/H.323 addresses and vice-versa.

DoT said the licensees should comply with all the interception and monitoring related requirements as specified in the licence.

The public IP address used for originating / terminating Internet telephony calls should be made a mandatory part of CDR in case of Internet telephony. The location details in form of latitude and longitude should be provided. CU Restriction facility should not be provided for Internet telephony subscribers, DoT said.

Internet telephony calls originated by international out roamers from international locations shall be handed over at the international gateway of licensed ILDOs and international termination charges will be paid to the terminating access service provider.

In case the licensee is not able to ensure that Internet telephony call originated outside of the country is coming through ILDO gateway, international outroaming to Internet telephony subscribers of the access provider shall not be allowed.

The calls originated outside the country using internet telephony shall be routed through ILD (International Long Distance) gateway like any other international call.