Tech body slams telcos for enterprise messaging stance
Broadband India Forum (BIF), a lobby for tech companies, has slammed the telcos’ stand against the use of OTT platforms such as WhatsApp, for enterprise communications, saying operators are only trying to thrust a technologically inferior and user-unfriendly product like SMS through regulatory/administrative intervention.
The Broadband India Forum (BIF) said the SMS route is often unreliable due to lapses in network coverage, which is why telco customers prefer app-based messaging platforms like WhatsApp over SMS.
“The telcos’ action is analogous to insisting on transportation by bullock cart when modern and more affordable automotive transportation is available and permitted,” T V Ramachandran, president, BIF, told ET.
The tech forum counts Amazon, Meta (which owns WhatsApp), Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm, and Google among its key members.
The BIF president added that WhatsApp and Telegram are perfectly legal and permissible products and it’s absurd to allege that some corporates are circumventing and bypassing the legal telecom route by using apps.
The popularity of OTT communication platforms among users, he said, is the result of better experience.
“It’s a well-known fact that SMSes restrict more than 160 characters in a message, do not provide delivery and read confirmation, delivery is unpredictable and very often delayed, and don’t facilitate multimedia messages.”
App-based platforms became the preference of businesses due to the higher quality of communication with customers on app-based platforms.
“Rather than indulge in such baseless allegations, they are advised not to attempt to block the use of legitimate modern technology and thus harm the end-users in our digital economy,” said the BIF president.
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