Tag: ISPs

Cracking down on Indian TV & streaming piracy, Italian style

MUMAI: Piracy has been the bane of both broadcasters and streamers for some time now. Yes, both have anti-piracy crews who spend crores of rupees behind sophisticated tools which crawl the world wide web round the clock to track illegal streams and bring down the rogue sites with the help of ISPs.

Even the Indian government has stepped in at times with the department of telecommunications (DoT) directing ISPs to take down the crooks, but more often than not the takedowns relate to what the mandarins fear could be a threat to national security, religious sentiment, is defamatory or points fingers at the powers-that-be wrongly.

Could it learn from what the Italian government is doing to protect broadcasters and streamers and bring down piracy? The authorities there are not using Mafia-like tactics; they are simply putting in place stricter regulation, policing and implementation.

Italy has more than five million or more citizens accessing scoundrel sites costing the pay TV ecosystem (more specifically sports) – Dazn, Sky Italia, Prime Video and Mediaset Infinity – more than €400 million annually.

To get an insight into what’s happening in Italy a little bit of background in sequential order would help. In August 2023, the Italian government passed a strict anti-piracy law which brought in lay viewers into the fold of those who would be penalised with fines going up as high as €5,000. ISPs would be slapped with administrative fines of 20 million lira to 500 million lira, or in today’s currency – €10,00 to €265,000. Those involved in the supply/distribution of infringing IPTV streams would face up to three years in prison and a fine of up to €15,000.

Then on 31 January 2024, Lega Serie A (the governing body of football in Italy) launched an anti-piracy platform Piracy Shield which is operated by the nation’s Communications Regulatory Authority, AgCom. Its purpose was to identify and penalise those who are watching – mind you, those who are WATCHING – pirated content, and even those who are streaming it. Piracy Shield was designed to block illegal streaming within 30 minutes of detection by targeting both IP addresses and domain names.

In March 2024, Italians received reminders that fines were on the way, even for those who download illegal sports streaming apps from legal marketplaces operated by Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Reports are that the measures seem to be working so far. The multi-pronged exercise has succeeded in blocking over 1,000 online domains and more than 500 IP addresses associated with illegal streaming activities since the start of the new football season in Italy. However, no information was available about individuals being penalised for viewing pirated content at the time of writing.

Recently, AgCom announced the extension of Piracy Shield to cover cultural events, music and TV series. Additionally, it signed a memorandum of understanding between the prosecutor’s office and Guardia di Finanza (financial police) under which automatic information exchange between the parties will enable subscribers of pirate IPTV services to be automatically fined. Yes – AUTOMATICALLY fined.

Secondly, an amendment to the online copyright enforcement regulation approved by the Italian senate proposes prison sentences of up to a year for individuals who do not report – yes, those who DO NOT REPORT – piracy or related offences. The amendments also target service providers such as VPN and DNS companies. This includes VPN and DNS service providers such as Google and Cloudflare. These providers will face stricter obligations to cooperate with authorities in stopping the distribution of pirated material.

The amendments and changes have been welcomed by the Italian pay TV industry and streamers. The reason: under the new dispensation, authorities will soon have access to names, surnames, IP addresses, and other identifying details of those accessing criminal websites and hence penalties will be automatically imposed.

We will have to wait and see how effective these measures will prove to be and how much they will deter the pirates in Italy.

In the meantime, can the Indian pay TV ecosystem, DoT, and the government take a closer look at the Italian model of curbing piracy? Can the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and industry come together to create an industry wide platform to curb sports broadcast leakages? Especially, since it is the main sports body that has been raking in billions of dollars by licensing the TV rights. Can the penalties for resorting to piracy be made tougher?

A study in 2023 pointed out that Indian broadcasters and streamers are losing close to $3 billion (Rs 25,000 crore) annually on signal leakages related to sports and TV series telecasts through illegal cable TV and internet distribution. Indian anti-piracy laws also only finger and penalise the pirates – and that too infrequently as policing, and implementation is weak. Hence, piracy continues to be to be widespread and almost everyone in the ecosystem takes it lightly.

Harsher measures like making viewers and the likes of Google and Apple culpable through automatic penalties could help alleviate the problem. The authorities will not have to penalise too many violators; just making a loud noise about a few could prove a deterrent to most.

The times, they are a-changing. Can the anti-piracy efforts in India gain in strength and momentum through collaboration between the stakeholders?

October 8, 2024
TRAI extends dates for views on AGR issues relating to Spectrum

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has extended the dates for getting views on minimum presumptive AGR for Spectrum and VSAT licenses.

A release today said comments can be sent on 13 October with countercomments if any by 27 October 2016.Following a query by the Department of Telecom on25 June 2016, TRAI had asked stakeholdersif spectrum assignment on location basis/link-by-link basis on administrativebasis to ISPs, be continued in the specified bands.

In the consultation paper issued following the DoT letter,the regulator has discussed issues relating to minimum presumptive AGR for ISPlicenses and VSAT licenses and other issues raised by DoT in its reference of25 June 2014, and 15 May 2015. The information/clarifications were furnished toDoT in the letter of 2 March 2016.

The DoT had soughtTRAI’s recommendations in terms of clause 11(1) of TRAI Act 1997 (as amended)on:

(A) ISP license (i) Rates for SUC; (ii) Percentage of AGR including minimum AGR; (iii) Allied issues like schedule of payment, charging ofinterest, penalty and Financial Bank Guarantee (FBG).

(B) Commercial VSAT license (i) Floor level (minimum) AGR, based on the amount ofspectrum held by commercial VSAT operators. The Authority said in 2014 it had suo motu undertaken theexercise of review of definition of revenue base (AGR) for the reckoning oflicence fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC).

The Consultation Paper wasissued on 31st July 2014 and Recommendations on 6 January 2015. The Recommendationsalong with other issues also contain recommendations on minimum presumptiveAGR. In the Recommendations of 6 January 2015, the Authority hadrecommended that minimum presumptive AGR for the purpose of LF and SUC should notbe made applicable for any licenses granted by the Government for providingtelecom services.

Paper available on trai.gov.in

Also read

http://www.indiantelevision.com/regulators/trai/trai-issues-consultation-paper-on-agr-issues-relating-to-spectrum-160819

September 20, 2016
TRAI extends dates for views on AGR issues relating to Spectrum

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has extended the dates for getting views on minimum presumptive AGR for Spectrum and VSAT licenses.

A release today said comments can be sent on 13 October with countercomments if any by 27 October 2016.Following a query by the Department of Telecom on25 June 2016, TRAI had asked stakeholdersif spectrum assignment on location basis/link-by-link basis on administrativebasis to ISPs, be continued in the specified bands.

In the consultation paper issued following the DoT letter,the regulator has discussed issues relating to minimum presumptive AGR for ISPlicenses and VSAT licenses and other issues raised by DoT in its reference of25 June 2014, and 15 May 2015. The information/clarifications were furnished toDoT in the letter of 2 March 2016.

The DoT had soughtTRAI’s recommendations in terms of clause 11(1) of TRAI Act 1997 (as amended)on:

(A) ISP license (i) Rates for SUC; (ii) Percentage of AGR including minimum AGR; (iii) Allied issues like schedule of payment, charging ofinterest, penalty and Financial Bank Guarantee (FBG).

(B) Commercial VSAT license (i) Floor level (minimum) AGR, based on the amount ofspectrum held by commercial VSAT operators. The Authority said in 2014 it had suo motu undertaken theexercise of review of definition of revenue base (AGR) for the reckoning oflicence fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC).

The Consultation Paper wasissued on 31st July 2014 and Recommendations on 6 January 2015. The Recommendationsalong with other issues also contain recommendations on minimum presumptiveAGR. In the Recommendations of 6 January 2015, the Authority hadrecommended that minimum presumptive AGR for the purpose of LF and SUC should notbe made applicable for any licenses granted by the Government for providingtelecom services.

Paper available on trai.gov.in

Also read

http://www.indiantelevision.com/regulators/trai/trai-issues-consultation-paper-on-agr-issues-relating-to-spectrum-160819

September 20, 2016
Net Neutrality: Reactions from the consumers provide deep insights

NEW DELHI: Issues relating to OTT and net neutrality have been in the news for almost two years now and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which had earlier issued a paper on Over-the-top (OTT) apps, came out with a paper on Net Neutrality on 30 May 2016.

TRAI’s frequent revisiting of the Net Neutrality issue highlights the fact that the regulator is under immense pressure from various stakeholders with diverse interests. TRAI had first issued a consultation paper over 18 months back and had also passed an order — hotly contested by telecom companies— banning differential pricing floated by some telcos recently, which had sounded the death gong for Facebook’s FreeBasic in India.

However as the TRAI website is seen generally only by those in the broadcasting or telecom sectors, a brief summary of TRAI’s pre-consultation paper has been placed on the mygov.in so that the general public can react and send in their feedbacks.

As a result, over 73,000 posts have already come on this site from the general public who have unanimously supported net neutrality. Some have gone to the extent of asking why TRAI or the government should ask this question.

Though indiantelevision.com firmly believes that at times the debate in India over Net Neutrality has been shrill and has clouded real and serious aspects of neutrality, there are some interesting feedbacks as well that indicate how general Indians view Net Neutrality.

For example, one writer says: “TRAI focus should be broadband speed minimum 50MBps Download/ 25MBps Upload. There should be no pollution, so focus on fiber/copper with speeds of up to 10GBps (ten GBps) and ensure that latency is very low, connectivity is much better (speed and latency are different).”

The same respondent points out that companies are offering 5GB on 4Mbps for high prices up to Rs 900 and data caps should be removed or have minimum of 1TBps. He has said that lease lines should be made affordable with customer support.

Says another respondent: “I cannot imagine an India as net partial with a discriminatory telecom structure not letting me call my kin freely, surf net with discrimination. The Governments needs to recall and emulate Dr Ambedkar’s ideas, the esteemed voice of freedom and non-discrimination of free India.”

Yet another individual says: “In the name of neutrality. Let us not stop access of net to one billion Indians. Many pay phone/net data bills (simply by transferring data) higher than electricity bills (which is consuming energy, which is costlier to produce). Let the government ensure that data service is affordable to all.”

Another consumer says, “We want freedom to choose and not Internet Service Provider choosing for us. There is also stress on removing corruption which can be done by removing interest on security deposit, seven days extra charge after disconnection refund, towers on house and low heights.”

Yet another respondent commented: “Without net neutrality, internet would go into the hands of people who can pay the ISPs to give their websites for cheaper price. This will hamper start-ups and other small players who cannot afford to pay the ISPs. For a thriving economy, it is important to have competing players in market. In the absence of net neutrality, this competition will be disrupted and monopoly will be established — which is not good for the consumers.”

But the responses are not confined to just plain feedbacks, and some people have also tried to support their theories and assertions.

A respondent has attached a presentation with diagrams to say, “Internet traffic and congestion on network problem can be sorted out by dividing the network into logistic small segments. These small logic segments can have their unique set of protocols, which when connected with the large network enable it to tackle with security and cyber issues as well as enable the large network to tackle the Internet traffic and congestion issues.

“The logical small segments should be designed and implemented in way so that they can be extended with the increase of customers as well as data demand on that network. The core of the large network can be designed/assembled in a way that its data limitations can be extended with demand (Same technique can be apply on the logistic small networks).”

The person, who seems to have some understanding of technology and its functioning, adds that designing/assembling and implementation of smart networking system will lead to a major step for providing a standard Internet facility to the individuals, having fixed rate data plan with standard accessibility and speed of the Internet facility. The diagrams show one of a road where the light poles have small boxes to pass the Internet signal from one to the next.

Incidentally, the original pre-consultation paper on net neutrality issued by TRAI on 30 May 2016 is available at http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20775_0.aspx on the regulator’s website does not still have any comments uploaded on the issue. The last date for submission of comments is 21 June 2016.

June 14, 2016
Net Neutrality: Reactions from the consumers provide deep insights

NEW DELHI: Issues relating to OTT and net neutrality have been in the news for almost two years now and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which had earlier issued a paper on Over-the-top (OTT) apps, came out with a paper on Net Neutrality on 30 May 2016.

TRAI’s frequent revisiting of the Net Neutrality issue highlights the fact that the regulator is under immense pressure from various stakeholders with diverse interests. TRAI had first issued a consultation paper over 18 months back and had also passed an order — hotly contested by telecom companies— banning differential pricing floated by some telcos recently, which had sounded the death gong for Facebook’s FreeBasic in India.

However as the TRAI website is seen generally only by those in the broadcasting or telecom sectors, a brief summary of TRAI’s pre-consultation paper has been placed on the mygov.in so that the general public can react and send in their feedbacks.

As a result, over 73,000 posts have already come on this site from the general public who have unanimously supported net neutrality. Some have gone to the extent of asking why TRAI or the government should ask this question.

Though indiantelevision.com firmly believes that at times the debate in India over Net Neutrality has been shrill and has clouded real and serious aspects of neutrality, there are some interesting feedbacks as well that indicate how general Indians view Net Neutrality.

For example, one writer says: “TRAI focus should be broadband speed minimum 50MBps Download/ 25MBps Upload. There should be no pollution, so focus on fiber/copper with speeds of up to 10GBps (ten GBps) and ensure that latency is very low, connectivity is much better (speed and latency are different).”

The same respondent points out that companies are offering 5GB on 4Mbps for high prices up to Rs 900 and data caps should be removed or have minimum of 1TBps. He has said that lease lines should be made affordable with customer support.

Says another respondent: “I cannot imagine an India as net partial with a discriminatory telecom structure not letting me call my kin freely, surf net with discrimination. The Governments needs to recall and emulate Dr Ambedkar’s ideas, the esteemed voice of freedom and non-discrimination of free India.”

Yet another individual says: “In the name of neutrality. Let us not stop access of net to one billion Indians. Many pay phone/net data bills (simply by transferring data) higher than electricity bills (which is consuming energy, which is costlier to produce). Let the government ensure that data service is affordable to all.”

Another consumer says, “We want freedom to choose and not Internet Service Provider choosing for us. There is also stress on removing corruption which can be done by removing interest on security deposit, seven days extra charge after disconnection refund, towers on house and low heights.”

Yet another respondent commented: “Without net neutrality, internet would go into the hands of people who can pay the ISPs to give their websites for cheaper price. This will hamper start-ups and other small players who cannot afford to pay the ISPs. For a thriving economy, it is important to have competing players in market. In the absence of net neutrality, this competition will be disrupted and monopoly will be established — which is not good for the consumers.”

But the responses are not confined to just plain feedbacks, and some people have also tried to support their theories and assertions.

A respondent has attached a presentation with diagrams to say, “Internet traffic and congestion on network problem can be sorted out by dividing the network into logistic small segments. These small logic segments can have their unique set of protocols, which when connected with the large network enable it to tackle with security and cyber issues as well as enable the large network to tackle the Internet traffic and congestion issues.

“The logical small segments should be designed and implemented in way so that they can be extended with the increase of customers as well as data demand on that network. The core of the large network can be designed/assembled in a way that its data limitations can be extended with demand (Same technique can be apply on the logistic small networks).”

The person, who seems to have some understanding of technology and its functioning, adds that designing/assembling and implementation of smart networking system will lead to a major step for providing a standard Internet facility to the individuals, having fixed rate data plan with standard accessibility and speed of the Internet facility. The diagrams show one of a road where the light poles have small boxes to pass the Internet signal from one to the next.

Incidentally, the original pre-consultation paper on net neutrality issued by TRAI on 30 May 2016 is available at http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20775_0.aspx on the regulator’s website does not still have any comments uploaded on the issue. The last date for submission of comments is 21 June 2016.

June 14, 2016
Porn ban: IAMAI says notice to ISPs will lead to a chilling effect

MUMBAI: The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has said that the latest government notice dated 4 August, 2015, to the Intermediaries (ISPs) is vague and has led to a chilling effect.

The notice states that the ISPs are free not to disable any of the 857 URLs, as provided in the list earlier, which do not have child pornographic content. However, the problem is with the caveat in the notice mentioning “which do not have child pornographic content.”

The problem is that the said notice is not accompanied by any specific list of sites or links and the Intermediaries are expected to find out the links or sites containing child pornography themselves. This is not how it works under the law. The correct procedure should have been to provide the ISPs with a specific list along with the notification, as was done in the earlier notice dated 31 July, 2015.

The ISPs have rightly asked the government to withdraw the notification. The Internet Service Providers Association of India’s (ISPAI) letter to the government states, “We urge you to withdraw the said vague directive as it is not only confusing, but also putting responsibility on ISPs of the website on which ISPs does not have any control.” However, they are wrong in saying that “till further directives, the said 857 sites will continue to be blocked.”

IAMAI has said that this is a typical case of a chilling effect and its worst fears have come true.

August 6, 2015
Bengaluru MSOs, ISPs to cough up Rs 300 crore as 15-year fee for cables laid

MUMBAI: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will soon have Rs 3 billion in its kitty. And how? The municipal corporation has after deliberations for over two months come out with a fee structure for laying of cables across the city by multi-system cable TV operators (MSOs) and internet service providers (ISPs).

According to BBMP, MSOs and ISPs in the city have laid at least 15,000 km of cables. The move to levy a fee is to not only generate revenue, but also to ensure that the roads remain clean.

MSOs and ISPs have to pay upfront Rs 200 per meter for three cable ducts as fee for a period of 15 years. In addition, MSOs and ISPs will have to pay Rs 100 per meter for every additional duct they use.

Local cable operators (LCOs) have been exempted from paying a fee for laying cables.

According to an official with a Bengaluru-based MSO, the BBMP has asked the 30 MSOs operating in the city to submit a letter accepting the terms and conditions set by the municipal corporation for laying cables. “This letter needs to be sent on an immediate basis. Those who accept the terms can then be permitted for underground cabling,” the MSO official says.

The MSOs and ISPs which have already laid underground optical fibre cable (OFC), will in the next 3 months have to submit details of their underground cabling to the BBMP. On failure to provide details of cables already laid, the BBMP can either remove the OFC or can auction it.

“If the operators fail to submit details, the property will no longer belong to them,” the MSO official explains.

BBMP has also given three months to MSOs and ISPs to declare all uncleared OFC and pay a penalty at the rate of Rs 200 per meter in addition to the Rs 200 per meter per three ducts payable for a period of 15 years.

The MSOs and ISPs have also been asked to conduct third-party inspections of repairs done to roads damaged due to underground laying of cables. “This has to be done at the company’s cost,” he informs. Operators also have to pay Rs 100 per meter of cable laid as supervision charge to the BBMP.

February 21, 2014
Broadband base up in July, with monthly growth at rate of 0.33%

NEW DELHI: The total Broadband subscriber base in the country has increased from 15.19 million at the end of June 2013 to 15.24 million at the end of July 2013. This is a monthly growth of 0.33 per cent. The yearly growth in broadband subscribers is 3.79 per cent during the last one year (July 2012 to July 2013).

The top five internet service providers in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are: BSNL (9.97 million), Bharti Airtel (1.43 million), MTNL (1.10 million), Hathway (0.37 million) and You Broadband (0.32 million).

According to the latest telecom subscription data as on 31 July 2013 released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there are 161 internet service providers (ISPs) which are providing broadband services in the country. Out of these, 121 ISPs (having 98.48 per cent market share) have provided broadband subscription data for the month of July 2013, for the rest of the ISPs data from previous month has been retained.

Meanwhile, Indian rural telecom has faced downturn – despite service providers’ special packages – as mobile user base declined by two million in July 2013. TRAI said net mobile additions declined 0.57 per cent or by 2 million to 349.09 million from 351.10 million in June.

In July – according to TRAI data – Indian urban mobile user base increased by 3.52 million or 0.67 per cent to 525.78 million from 522.27 million in June.

The share of urban wireless subscribers has increased from 59.80 per cent to 60.10 per cent whereas share of rural wireless subscribers has decreased from 40.20 per cent to 39.90 per cent.

TRAI statistics says total wireless subscriber base increased from 873.36 million in June to 874.88 million in July 2013, registering a monthly growth of 0.17 per cent. The overall wireless Teledensity in India has reached 71.13 per cent in July from 71.08 per cent of previous month. Wireless subscription in urban areas increased to 525.78 million in July.

The urban wireless teledensity has increased from 139.16 to 139.87 whereas rural teledensity has decreased from 41.14 per cent to 40.88 per cent.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 29.73 million in June 2013 to 29.58 million in July. The net reduction in wireline subscriber base was 0.15 million at the rate of 0.50 per cent.

The share of urban subscribers has decreased from 78.11 per cent to 78.0 per cent whereas share of rural subscribers has increased from 21.89 per cent to 22.0 per cent. The overall wireline Teledensity has decreased from 2.42 per cent in June 2013 to 2.40 per cent in July 2013, with urban and rural Teledensity being 6.14 per cent and 0.76 per cent respectively.

BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU operators hold 78.65 per cent of the Wireline market share.

October 15, 2013