The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday has issued a Consultation Paper on 'Internet Telephony (VoIP)' to identify issues in providing internet telephony services and address them in a holistic manner.

It hopes that it would help solve some long-standing issues.

"Some important issues are allocation of telephone numbers, interconnection, interconnection usage charges, quality of service and access to Emergency (number)," TRAI said in a statement.

Some of the main issues in the Paper include -- what should be the additional entry fee, performance bank guarantee, and financial bank guarantee for internet service providers if they are also allowed to provide unrestricted internet telephony?; What should be the termination charge when call is terminating into internet telephony network?; and how to ensure that users of international internet telephony calls pay application international termination charges.

There are also queries like should the last mile for an internet telephony subscriber be the public internet irrespective of where the subscriber is currently located as long as the PSTN leg abides by all the interconnection rules and regulations concerning national long distance operator (NLDO) and international long distance operator (ILDO).

The written comments on the issues raised are invited from the stakeholders by July 21 and counter comments by August 4, TRAI added.

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