TRAI recommends regulation for cloud service providers

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday recommended a light touch regulation for cloud service providers (CSPs) and asked Department of Telecommunications to initiate the setting up of an industry body.

“The Authority recommends that DoT may initiate setting up of the first industry-led body and require all CSPs to become its members. This body would lay down broad principles and procedures to aid its functioning,” the regulator said.

The industry body so created may review its experience and further deliberate upon the need to form multiple bodies for different purposes, such as to address requirements of different market segments, it said.

“DoT may require this review after two years of commencement of the functioning of the first industry body, or such time as it considers appropriate,” it further said.

The Authority earlier this year had said that CSPs such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure fall under the TRAI Act and can be regulated by it.

It recommended that the scope of CSPs may be initially limited to providers offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) in India or to customers in India. Software as a Service (SaaS) providers may voluntarily enrol for membership, if they so wish.

Any expansion of scope to mandate membership beyond IaaS and PaaS may be considered by the industry body on need basis and recommended to DoT for acceptance, it added.