TRAI India Regulations regarding VoIP

[Terry Cheema]

Hi Guys,

Has there been any change in the TRAI regulations lately? Can someone please update me with the latest rules on what is allowed and what's not allowed? As far as I have researched, mixing of VoIP and PSTN is not allowed.

Can we a have a conference bridge in India with users dialing from their IP phones or Lync Clients and at the same time some external parties joining that conference? I am not looking at toll by pass - just a means of establishing a local conference in-dial number in India, which can have a mix of both the internal users (IP Based) and external PSTN based users joining the conference.

Is there any possibility to use SIP Trunking as well in India?

-Terry

[Vivek Batra · Accepted solution]

Hi Terry,

Nothing has been changed in the past however TRAI has not defined restrictions very explicitly hence there is a chaos what is allowed and what's not.

In the nutshell as per TRAI, no call routing should happen which are not in the interest of local PSTN service provider with respect to toll bypass.

TRAI regulates that IP to PSTN calls are not allowed as long as it bypass the toll otherwise it's allowed.

For example, if I have multi site deployment, my IP phone should select the PSTN line which is being terminated in the same premises as it doesn't bypass the toll. My IP phone should not select the PSTN line of other office as it bypass the toll.

Second, I should use VoIP infrastructure within office premise only and it should not allow IP phones to connect to public internet WAN. For example, I can't carry my phone (say Jabber) to my home and use the PSTN line of my office. IP to PSTN should be terminated only within the office.

Regarding your SIP trunking question, it's now allowed still in India however one service provider (Tata) has recently started giving PRI services over SIP. But TRAI regulations still applies there. They are giving dedicated circuit to customer premises to have SIP trunking on that line and this IP circuit is completely isolated from WAN circuit.

Regarding conference bridge question, no exact such use case is defined by TRAI but as per my experience, this is conditionally allowed. As long as conference bridge and IP phones are in the same physical site (/office) and someone from PSTN joins the bridge, it's allowed. However, if conference bridge and IP phones joining conference are not in same site, their call should not get merged with PSTN users joining conference bridge.

Thanks

Vivek 

[Terry Cheema]

Vivek - First of all thanks for sharing the information, its very helpful. The last paragraph on the conference bridge in particular is very useful.

Just to confirm again, Lets say we have an office in Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad in India and other global locations. We also have a conference bridge in Delhi, so according to the rules:

1) We can not have ip phones from Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad dial the conference bridge (on-net internal call) and at the same time have PSTN callers dial in from India/Global locations.

2) We can not have ip phones from India and Global locations dial into the conference bridge and at the same time have PSTN callers dial into bridge?

3) Obviously all internal IP phones in India and global can have on-net conference through this bridge located in Delhi?

Can you please comment if the above is correct or there is still anything I have missed? Also can you help to point me to any particular rule/section from TRAI I can refer to, if at all possible.

Thanks Again for your help much appreciated.

-Terry

[Vivek Batra · Accepted solution]

Hi Terry,

Glad to see I can help you at some point.

1. Correct. I believe that it's allowed as long as only IP users from Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad dial the conference bridge (because IP to IP calls are allowed). It becomes restricted as soon as any PSTN user joins this conference. This is b/c conference bridge is in Delhi and outside IP users (Pune/Hyderabad) are not intended to connect to PSTN of Delhi office.

2. Correct

3. Yes since IP to IP calls are allowed.

I don't have direct reference to TRAI document for now but I will try to get it and will share if possible.

FYI, following is an excerpt from one of the Cisco doc;

Regulations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) require that voice traffic over the enterprise data network and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) must be strictly separated and no mixing of calls between the two networks can occur for the purpose of toll bypass.

The following list shows basic scenarios that are restricted (that is, not allowed):

• The call that passes through a PSTN gateway connects directly by using WAN to a VoIP phone or VoIP PSTN gateway in a different geographic location.
– If PSTN gateway is located in India, this remains strictly restricted. If the PSTN is in another country and a VoIP phone is in India and if connection results in revenue loss to Indian telecom service providers, the connection gets considered restricted.

The following list gives basic scenarios that are permitted:
• Call directly between two VoIP phones in different geographic locations
• Call from a VoIP phone to a PSTN gateway in the same geographic location
A call that passes through a PSTN gateway must never connect directly to a VoIP phone or VoIP PSTN gateway in a different site or geographic location (geolocation) through use of IP telephony.

Attached case study might of your interest.

Thanks

Vivek

[Terry Cheema]

Thanks Again Vivek I am trying to digest this confusion from TRAI :).

-Terry

[Terry Cheema]

Vivek,

I have got another scenario. Can you please confirm the below as well:

If we have a conference being hosted by a global location, lets says Sydney. We have our Lync/IP phone users dial into the conference from Sydney and India offices and External Parties dial the Int'l number or a toll free number fwding calls to Sydney through PSTN, I believe we are not breaching any law here?

-Terry

[Ajith Nayak]

Dear Terry

As per TRAI voip calls and PSTN calls should not mix.

let me give u simple scenarios:

1. lets say External caller calls, call lands from the voice gateway to a VOIP phone.  a.external caller can talk to the internal voip user.

b External caller can be pached for confernce call within a VOIP network accross all the offices

c.Also external caller can be transferd internally in the same office not other geolocations.

d.External PSTN caller also can be put in conference to any external world however once the Voip confernce initator disconnects the call the external PSTN caller will also get disconnected.

d. A voip caller can call a PSTN number and also can make a confernce call to any PSTN number howver once the Voip caller drops the call all the participants should get disconnected.

e. Technically we can transfer any voip call to any PSTN number and also pach any voip caller with conf to any PSTN . But it is not allowed as per TRAI so we use logical partitiong. Also few parameters needs to be enable/disable in enterprise parameter like adhoc,transfer drop the party etc...

2. Scenario

Lets say you have a two office in same location but lets say there is more than 2 mile distance between the offices TRAI says both offices should have seperate VG to make a PSTN calls.Howwever there is a soultuion that is OSP other service provider license customer can opt for same if incase he needs to route the calls from one offic from other office voice gateway this mostly found in call centre scenarios. In india PSTN call terif plans changes from location to location even if you are in same city.

Even if you have a same campus with many offices Still  TRAI says each building should opt for a seperate voice gateway to make PSTN calls and VOIP callers are suppose to make PSTN calls only from their voice gateway.

I have seen few users still keep one VG in their campus and they have sevral building s with voip users. But its not good practise.

HTH...

[Terry Cheema]

Thanks Guys.

[Bishay Bishesh]

Hi Ajith,

Great response from you. I had some doubts and your post clarified them. I have one question for you. You mentioned:

b External caller can be pached for confernce call within a VOIP network accross all the offices

c.Also external caller can be transferd internally in the same office not other geolocations.

I want to know- how will you restrict the below two things in the call manager:

1. the VoIP in Delhi handling a PSTN call can NOT transfer the call to another VoIP user within organization but in Hyderabad.

2. the VoIP user in Delhi handling a PSTN call should be able to conference the call to another VoIP user within organization but in Hyderabad.

Rg,

Bishay

[Suresh Hudda]

You are not supposed to do that as per TRAI. Call transfer, forwarding and conference must not be completed if call legs of these calls are on different network (pstn and voip).

Suresh

[Bishay Bishesh]

Suresh, I think you are right. Both conference and transfer is not allowed. Doesn't make sense to allow conference and restrict transfer..

[sajay1982]

Need an Uregent help.

so if i am transferring my India Operations to Manila. i have a MTNL Connection in India and want to forward the calls from India to Manila (DID).

TRAI regulations does not mention anywhere that this is not allowed. does any body know the law.

[Vivek Batra]

Hi,

If you are taking your calls from PSTN to outside India over IP, this is simply not allowed. You can refer CUCM SRND Logical Partitioning chapter.

- Vivek

[Ravi Yadav]

Hi Vivek,

Would you be able to comment on the Video conferencing part as well,

will that be allowed if i register my device which is in india over to a VCS in US and conduct video calls.

would it follow the same rules.

Regards

Ravi

[Vivek Batra]

Hi Ravi,

As long as PSTN is not included as it should be your case, it should be allowed.

- Vivek