Re: India to tax / levy license fees on ISPs that offer VPNs
Deepak Jain [16/11/04 18:15 -0500]:
I guess it depends on how you define a VPN over just a private network. Is an SSH tunnel a VPN? What about an encrypting SOCKS proxy?
This "tax" is aimed at a few Indian ISPs that are making lots of money
selling managed IP-VPN services.. the incumbent telco seems to think all the
money going there would be better spent by companies if they bought copper /
fiber from it, and so the DoT (http://www.dot.gov.in) - lots of telco types
there who wouldn't know a vpn from a hole in the ground - decided to "level
the playing field"
Just for laughs, here's the DoT press release on this:
srs
http://www.dot.gov.in/pressnote10nov04ISP.doc
142/04
www.pib.nic.in
PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
******
ISP LICENSING CONDITIONS AMENDED TO PERMIT VPN SERVICES
New Delhi, Kartika 19, 1926
November 10, 2004
The Department of Telecommunications today decided to extend the scope of
the Licence conditions of Internet Service Providers (ISP) ,thereby
allowing them to provide managed Virtual Private Network services to
corporates and individuals.
In accordance with the decision, the ISP licences (both -Licence without
Internet Telephony and with Internet Telephony) will have an enabling
provision for VPN services by ISPs under specified terms & conditions. The
annual licence fee will be at 8% of the Gross Revenue generated under the
licence. There will be one time non-refundable entry fee of Rs. 10, 2 and 1
crore for Category A, B , and C ISPs respectively
ISP-with VPN licencee will be permitted to lay optical fibre cable or
use radio links for provision of the services under their licence in its
Service Area. Further, ISPs shall be free to enter into mutually agreed
commercial agreement with infrastructure service providers for sharing of
infrastructure. The ISPs shall not engage in reselling bandwidth directly
or indirectly. The above decision will help as many 388 ISP Licensees,
more particularly 61 all India (Category A) ISP Licensees, to offer VPN
services to their customers, thus adding to their revenue stream from
Internet Access Services.
VPN is a service where a customer perceives to have been provided with a
private network which actually is configured over a shared public network.
Benefits of VPN include secure communication over public network and
guaranteed quality of service. A High Level DoT Committee had examined
the matter and had observed that while on one hand such VPN services were
not under the scope of the present ISP licences, on the other hand it
would be desirable to permit ISPs to provide such services in the present
day liberalized telecom environment in the country. The services which
are technologically possible should be allowed while at the same time
ensuring level playing field to all the service providers. Such VPN
services which provide a platform for utilization of bandwidth in a very
cost effective and efficient manner are emerging services internationally.
This facility is necessary for the corporate world in meeting their
growing communication needs of inter-office connectivity to send/transfer
data securely and such services are widely available in telecom sector
globally.
RM/AMA 101104 ISP Licencing Conditions
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R. A. Hettinga
participants (1)
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Suresh Ramasubramanian