Draft of Telecommunications (Regulatory Sandbox) Rules, 2024 Issued

The Department of Telecommunication has published the draft of the Telecommunications (Regulatory Sandbox) Rules, 2024, on November 27, 2024, for facilitating innovation and technological development in the telecommunication sector. The government intends to share terms and conditions for enabling a live testing environment where new products, services, processes, and business models may be deployed on a particular set of test users for a limited period.

The regulatory sandboxes may be created suo-moto or on receipt of a proposal, and the validity period shall not exceed two years. However, the government may increase the period for up to another 12 months on request with reasons. The draft further provides details on the obligations of approved applicants, the constitution of the governance committee, the reporting requirements, scaling up of the testing and commercial viability of tested telecommunication services, and suspension or revocation of approval to operate and manage a regulatory sandbox without refund of fees.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had in June 2023 released a consultation paper and then in April 2024 released its recommendations on “Encouraging Innovative Technologies, Services, Use Cases, and Business Models through Regulatory Sandbox in the Digital Communication Sector.” In Dec 2023, the Central Government, inter alia, made provisions in the Telecommunication Act’ 2023 for the creation of regulatory sandboxes. Subsequently, in Mar 2024, guidelines were also issued to establish and operate ‘Spectrum Regulatory Sandbox’ (SRS) or ‘WiTe Zones (Wireless Test Zones)’.