The Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) released a consultation paper on “Regulatory Framework for Promoting Data Economy through Establishment of Data Centres, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), and Interconnect Exchanges in India”. 107 TRAI noted that these are key infrastructure elements required for a digital ecosystem.
Data centres are physical facilities used to host data and applications. CDN is a system consisting of a distributed group of servers and networks. It is used to deliver the content to a point in the network which is closer to the point of user request. Based on the geographic location of the user, the origin of the webpage, and the location of the content delivery server, this system ensures faster delivery of content. Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is a technical facility to route traffic quickly and cost-effectively between network members by enabling interconnection. Commercially, the internet consists of a hierarchy of global, regional, national, and local providers. To enable access to the content of a parent CDN or website hosted on an international data centre, global IXPs interconnect with the local IXPs to pass the traffic to the local data centres and then to the child CDNs. Internet Service Providers provide the last mile connectivity to users for accessing the services.
TRAI noted that the number of hops required by a network to process the user request is critically important. With the second-largest user base and fast-growing internet usage, there is a need for expansion of these infrastructure elements in the country. TRAI has sought views on: (i) incentives and long-term measures to facilitate growth and investment in data centres, CDNs, and IXPs, (ii) building, safety, disaster recovery, and security standards for data centres, (iii) access to facilities such as dedicated fibre and electricity, and provision of concessional tariffs or subsidies, (iv) need for a unified data centre policy in India and centre-state coordination, (v) need for a regulatory framework for CDN and interconnect exchanges in India.
Comments are invited until January 13, 2022.
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