Trai Not Considering Making WhatsApp, Viber, Skype Paid

Here's good news provided you have been suffering sleepless nights based on the fact you might soo have to pay up for the IM apps you use on your phone.

According to reports, users won't have to pay extra for IMs such as WhatsApp, Viber and Skype as the telecom regulator is not going ahead with the proposal of carriers to make companies that offer these services share part of their revenue with them or the government.

Apart from that, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also put on hold plans to initiate a consultation process. This is because it feels that operators are able to offset their losses through growth in data revenue, people close to the matter told ET.

The industry had already estimated a minimum annual loss of Rs 5,000 crore due to subscribers opting for free messenger services and voice over internet calls.

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"One-third of the incremental revenue of the telecom industry is coming from data services itself. As far as the voice services are concerned, there is an upswing in the realisation rates," one of the Trai officials told ET while also explaining the reasons for not intervening for the time being.

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"There is no proposal for a consultation paper (on regulating companies offering free messaging and calling services)," he added.