Get ready to pay 6 times more to use apps like WhatsApp, Skype

If everything goes according to the wishes of telecom operators in the country then very soon you will be paying extra to use popular apps like WhatsApp, Skype etc. While this may come across as a rude shock to most of us but reality states the obvious concerns of telcos in India who are worried about the impact of over the top (OTT) players like WhatsApp, Skype. Services like these continue thrive in a world wherein they are free of regulations and taxes that plague the business of operators like Airtel, Vodafone etc find it hard (legally) to make the OTT players pay for the services right now.

"Our endeavour is not to accrue licenses from OTT players but all we want is to have same rules for everyone," as highlighted by Himanshu Kapania, managing director, Idea Cellular speaking on behalf of the COAI committee. In their own peculiar way, telcos do not want to remove the impact of OTT players; instead they want them to fall under the same set of rules and regulations that keeps the telcos functioning.

But giving it a major thought, telcos have somewhat warned of the scenario wherein consumers might have to end up paying for the price that OTT players are supposed to pay to the telcos, "if voice and data aren't controlled in equal manner then telcos won't have an option but to increase data tariffs 6x in the coming years, as stated by Gopal Vittal vice chairman for COAI and CEO at Bharti Airtel recently.

According to telcos, they are concerned about the money that is getting pumped into the industry to improve/develop the infrastructure and here come players like WhatsApp, out of nowhere to impact on their SMS margins and slowly eating into their voice revenue as well in the form of data usage.

Will you start paying the likes of Airtel and Vodafone extra just so that you could continue using apps like Skype or Viber? Your voice matters and we'd like you to share it with us through the comments below.

-  techradar