Regulatory policies must change to cater to digital world: TRAI chief

Policies of the physical world cannot be simply “exported” to the digital world which is seeing rapid technological advances such as artificial intelligence (AI) and convergence of devices, Trai Chairman RS Sharma said on Wednesday.

Speaking at Convergence India 2018, he noted that while there is convergence of pipes as also communication devices, the advent of 5G is driving greater throughput, lowering latency and facilitating machine-to-machine communication.

 “A lot is changing in the digital world. We also need to change the policies, so we can grapple with this issue. Policies for new, digital world can't be the same as those for physical world. These same policies can't just be exported (for digital space),” RS  Sharma said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman said India has great opportunity to “leapfrog” by using technology, as the technological advancements make it possible to overcome deficiencies in physical infrastructure, and to offer services.

“The regulatory and policy space must change to cater to digital world and it has to leverage technologies, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and other technologies,” he said. Telecom pipes today are delivering all kinds of digital content, while devices like mobile phones are being used for browsing the Net as also watching movies and videos.

On the other hand, Cable TV pipes can deliver broadband, he noted.  Citing the case of biometric identifier Aadhaar, Sharma said that India needs frugal yet a robust technology architecture.

“Innovations are getting layered. Aadhaar which is digital identity infrastructure has on top of it, the India stack or India products, including eSign, eKYC, authentication services and digital locker,”  Sharma noted.