The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will soon come out with its recommendations if over-the-top (OTT) communication apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal etc need to be regulated or not.

The regulator in July last year came out with a consultation paper on the regulatory mechanism for OTT communication services and selective banning after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) asked the agency to reconsider its 2020 recommendations. Trai had back then proposed that OTT services need not be regulated. But it had said it would relook at the issue later, The Economic Times.

Refuting reports that the current OTT paper has become infructuous in the wake of notification of the Telecommunications Act, the Trai chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti today said, “The consultation was initiated after the recommendations of a Parliamentary committee and this consultation will continue. We will give our recommendations, and which Act it becomes a part of and which ministry or which regulator deals with it, is a separate matter.”