Telcos made Rs 10,000 cr extra capex in 2022-23 to support large apps: COAI
Telecom operators are estimated to have spent an additional Rs 10,000 crore in 2022-23 to support traffic generated by large entertainment and communication apps, according to an estimate of telecom industry body COAI. Cellular Operators Association of India, Director General, SP Kochhar told PTI that the infrastructure support provided by telecom operators to top 4-5 apps large traffic generator apps also corresponds to their revenue growth and in the absence of fair share norms for large apps, the government has lost about Rs 800 crore revenue in 2023 alone.
He said that the industry body has submitted a white paper to the Ministry of Finance in this regard in January.
«The additional capex required to provide the infrastructure to carry the LTG-related data traffic for the year 2023 alone amounts to around Rs 10,000 crore.
Accordingly, the proposed fair share to TSPs on the amount would have resulted in enhancing AGR-related licence fees and USOF levies (combined 8 per cent of AGR or part of revenue on which government computes its share) to almost Rs 800 crores for the government, which is presently not being received," Kochhar said.
Telecom operators across the world have been demanding contributions from large traffic generator apps mainly Netflix, WhatsApp, Instagram, X etc to support the cost of network infrastructure.
According to COAI's financial analysis, the industry capex, which was Rs 46,532 crores in March 2021, increased to Rs 53,661 crores in March 2022, to accommodate the then traffic from
