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While India is the second largest internet user base with 432 million internet users; the main growth sector of penetration, the Urban India, has started witnessing slowdown with around 60% internet penetration already achieved. The next wave of growth is to come from Rural India (presently with 17% internet penetration), and the dominant driver of future internet penetration is mobile internet.
The telecom sector has witnessed a sea-change in India over the last decade: 90% of internet access is through mobile phones; the ratio of voice-data traffic/revenue have shifted in favour of the latter; Mobile VAS, which was operator controlled, has given way for third-party app based services; Social media/VOIP/ internet based messaging app have emerged as the preferred mode of communication rather than conventional PSTN calls; services like digital payments and related mobile based e-wallets have transformed the mobile from a mere communication device to a more ubiquitous tool for daily needs; e-governance services have been replicated as m-governance to ensure greater out-reach and organic connect.These changes have transformed telecom for a primary service category to a mode of access to other service categories. Telecom today is the base on which the entire internet/digital service is delivered
and is a critical infrastructure for the realisation of the Digital India envisioned for the nation. What the telecom sector refers to as OTT is actually the mobile internet sector, which is an industry in its own rights, governed by the Information Technology Act of the country. Thus, the whole discourse of telecom sector regulating OTTs is misplaced in the Indian context as the 2 sectors are mutually exclusive though they share a symbiotic mutually-reinforcing relationship.
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