The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reportedly decided to take a wait-and-see approach on whether 5G network slicing would violate its regulations on net neutrality.

According to a report from ETTelecom on Thursday, Indian telcos have asked TRAI to revisit its net neutrality rules and make any necessary changes to allow network slicing, which they see as not only a key characteristic of 5G, but a potential generator of new revenues.

Network slicing enables 5G standalone operators to create premium dedicated fast lanes for customers willing to pay more, be it for mission-critical industrial use cases or bandwidth-intensive consumer apps like livestreaming and e-sports.

Critics say that network slicing is another form of differentiated quality of service that they claim goes against the principle of net neutrality, which guarantees open, non-discriminatory access to the internet.

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel – both of which plan to leverage 5G’s network slicing capabilities – as well as 5G telecoms vendors like Ericsson, have told TRAI that network slicing should be allowed under its net neutrality rules as long as slicing services don’t degrade data speeds for lower-tier users or block users from accessing specific content, the report said.

A TRAI advisor at a panel discussion on Wednesday said the regulator intends to see how network slicing services play out in practice before deciding if they comply with its net neutrality policy, the report said.

That potentially puts telcos in a bind, as it means they would have to launch 5G slicing services with the risk that TRAI might later decide such services violate the policy.

The debate over 5G slicing and net neutrality has come up in other regulatory jurisdictions. In the European Union, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is currently holding a public consultation on whether the EU’s net neutrality regulations already allow network slicing, and – if not – whether they should be updated to do so.

In the US, the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules were repealed in 2017 during US President Donald Trump’s first term. When the Biden administration reinstated the rules in 2024, the FCC said that 5G slicing would violate net neutrality. However, a US court struck down the reinstated rules at the start of 2025.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made a number of recommendations relating to the next auction of spectrum in India. But will they be accepted?

Earlier this week, TRAI publicised a large number of suggestions, apparently based on comments received from stakeholders during a consultation process, and its own further analysis, the most significant of which included the auctioning of the entire available spectrum in the upcoming sale – that is, spectrum in the 600MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 2300MHz, 2500MHz, 3300MHz, and 26GHz frequency bands.

That’s about 11,790MHz of spectrum, valued at about INR2.1 trillion (US$23.1 billion), more than 2022’s US$17 billion, but a lot more than the 2024 sale that raised only US$1.30 billion when Reliance Jio emerged as the sole bidder for the 700MHz spectrum.

Among its many other recommendations, TRAI suggested lower entry barriers for new entrants (including reduced net-worth requirements in some areas) and spectrum caps to safeguard competition – though this would not apply to any telecom carrier that has already acquired spectrum that exceeds the cap. 

After the 2022 auction, the 600MHz range reportedly contributes to nearly 62% of the overall spectrum availability with a reduced base price of up to 17%. TRAI suggested that while the spectrum charge on 600MHz may be levied for a period of 20 years, the validity period of the spectrum should be increased by four years to 24 years and that there should be no rollout obligations for the initial four years. Some commentators have suggested that this may have something to do with device availability.

TRAI also advocated reserving the 6GHz (upper) band for mobile telephony services and added that the available airwaves bands in the 6425-6725MHz and 7025-7125MHz should not be put up for sale until after the WRC-27, the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference, at which a number of decisions regarding spectrum usage worldwide will be made.

TRAI pointed out that a number of former Indian operators are dealing with insolvency and said that any spectrum they hold should be made available for the forthcoming spectrum auction. It also proposed a reduction of up to 10% in the spectrum cost from the auction-determined price for all licensed service areas (LSA) across frequency bands. LSAs include remote, rural or underdeveloped regions.

The bottom line, across the entire auction, is that spectrum could be close to 20% cheaper than prices recommended in 2022.

According to the Economic Times news service, the Union Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia has said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) would take a call on the spectrum auction following a review of the regulator’s recommendations – of which there are many more on TRAI’s website. The DoT will announce the actual dates for the live auction in the coming months.

Spectrum auctions worldwide are apparently attracting less interest recently. There has also been a perception that Indian prices have been too high in recent auctions. If TRAI’s recommendations are accepted does this mean pressure to get the spectrum sold could outweigh the – possibly unrealistic – desire to get a good price?

Global fintech platform Pine Labs has announced that it has won multiple contracts from three of the leading oil and marketing companies (OMCs) in India: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL).

Pine Labs will be entrusted with deploying, managing, and maintaining the digital payments infrastructure at petrol pumps and merchant outlets across India.

These are described as multi-year contracts aimed at leveraging the expertise of Pine Labs in managing the payment rails for swifter, secure, seamless money movements at the point of sale.

This is not a small undertaking: it involves nearly 130,000 digital payments acceptance devices to be deployed and maintained across India.

Pine Labs will also be managing IOCL’s loyalty rewards platform called XTRAPOWER, in use by hundreds of thousands of fleet operators in India. The programme, built on robust API integrations, caters to fuel management, fleet analytics, trip management, and secure chip and PIN digital payment transactions including card, mobile and RFID payments.

B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs, explains: “By combining our tech prowess with the massive retail footprints of top OMCs in India, we are enabling a tech-first and robust payments infra and a world-class prepaid loyalty rewards ecosystem. The software-first approach of Pine Labs will ensure faster product feature rollouts, minimal on-site intervention, and a unified payments and rewards/loyalty platform for accelerated digitisation of fuel retail commerce in India.”

Pine Labs operates in India and a growing number of international markets including Malaysia, UAE, Singapore, Australia, USA, and Africa.

It’s certainly been busy in India of late. As we reported at the time, in December API-enabled technology platform Setu, owned by Pine Labs, announced the launch of what it calls India’s first agentic bill-payments experience.

In February meanwhile, Pine Labs announced a collaboration with OpenAI to engineer what it called the era of agentic commerce in India. And in late January one of Sri Lanka’s largest listed entities, the Pan Asia Banking Corporation (PABC), and Pine Labs announced a partnership that will see the Pine Labs implementing an end-to-end card management platform for the bank.

Malaysian operator Tune Talk has taken a major step in its evolution from mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to fully fledged mobile network operator (MNO), partnering with Mavenir to run its own end-to-end network.

In a statement, Mavenir said the collaboration enables Tune Talk to operate its network independently using Mavenir’s cloud-native OSS and BSS platforms. The shift gives the operator greater control over network operations, improved reliability and the flexibility to roll out new digital services more quickly.

The upgraded architecture has already supported the launch of several new services, including digital ID integration, Mastercard ID Theft Protection, insurance products and in-app streaming offerings such as drama and gaming subscriptions.

The next phase of the partnership will see Tune Talk deploy advanced orchestration capabilities and next-generation, AI-powered BSS software to further enhance automation and service personalisation.

Tune Talk CEO Gurtaj Singh Padda said the move marks a strategic turning point for the company.

“Becoming a fully cloud-native MNO marks the start of a new chapter for Tune Talk and reinforces our ambition to build a smarter, more agile mobile network for Malaysia and beyond,” he said. “These foundations enable us to move faster, personalise services at scale and unlock new value through AI-driven innovation for our growing customer base.”

Mavenir President and CEO Pardeep Kohli added that the partnership reflects Tune Talk’s commitment to continuous innovation.

“Our fully cloud-native approach is essential to enabling the speed, flexibility and efficiency they rely on to keep delivering for their customers,” he said.

Since its launch in 2009, Tune Talk has operated as an MVNO, utilising a strategic wholesale agreement with CelcomDigi to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G connectivity.

The move positions Tune Talk among a growing number of operators embracing cloud-native infrastructure as they seek greater autonomy, cost efficiencies and faster service innovation in increasingly competitive mobile markets.

Five interesting fiber infrastructure investment projects, three of which target Texas: … [visit site to read more]

Google has announced an investment of US$500 million in the construction of submarine cables and an international digital exchange port for the Dominican Republic. This will apparently be the company’s eighth digital exchange port in the world and the first in Latin America.

This is also said to be the first international submarine cable ring to the continental United States from the Dominican Republic.

The company will develop an open and neutral infrastructure with the capacity to host four new international submarine cables. A first phase will involve the installation of two new submarine cables between the Dominican Republic and the United States, which will be added to the existing one between the two countries. Construction will begin in March.

Dominican President Luis Abinader signed a decree late last week, declaring the construction of digital exchange ports and the installation, deployment, and operation of submarine cable systems a matter of high national priority. 

Local press reports say the decree seeks to strengthen digital infrastructure, expand international connectivity, and position the Dominican Republic as a regional hub for artificial intelligence.

Indeed, the thinking is that a digital exchange port will place the Dominican Republic at the centre of information exchange between North America, Central America and South America.

The new infrastructure will make it possible to multiply by ten the number of fibre optic pairs that currently connect the two territories, in addition to offering diversified connectivity and reduced latency to the South Carolina and Virginia Google Cloud regions in the US.

According to the BNamericas news service, the country has five other submarine cables in operation that connect it with Caribbean territories and, from there, with the continent, although some are approaching the end of their useful life.

According to the government, internet traffic in the Dominican Republic has increased 500% in the last five years; more than 35% comes from the United States.

Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly a strong government focus. Last year the Dominican Republic signed an agreement with AI and accelerated computing company Nvidia, to establish a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CEIA).

Also last year, the regulator Indotel and the Centro de Inteligencia Pública (CIP) signed a cooperation agreement to create an AI academy in the country, to accelerate training in AI.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Samuel Turcotte, President & Chief Technology Officer of Zukor Interactive

Artificial intelligence is the modern magic. I use AI every day, and it has profoundly improved my life. I wrote this because I am simultaneously excited and concerned about the monumental impact AI will have on humanity. … [visit site to read more]

Nigerian operators have settled a long-running unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) payment dispute with commercial banks. It seems that, five years after the dispute began, all outstanding payments have now been made.

The Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the official industry body for all providers of telecommunications and subsidiary services in Nigeria, said late last week that banks had cleared all outstanding balances related to USSD services. ALTON chairman Gbenga Adebayo said the repayment covered nearly ₦300 billion (about US$200 million).

USSD is a messaging protocol used by GSM cellular networks to enable instant, two-way communication between mobile phones and applications. It works without internet or data, making it ideal for mobile banking, balance checks and network services.

This issue apparently originated as a result of unpaid corporate invoicing for mobile banking sessions, leading to operators threatening several banks with disconnection.

And not just operators. Indeed, we reported in January 2025 that regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had issued an ultimatum for nine banks to pay up on their USSD codes or be disconnected before the end of that month.

News service ITWeb Africa reports that to prevent a repeat of this situation, an end-user billing framework has been adopted. Under this model, customers are charged directly from airtime balances rather than banks settling bulk invoices.

It explains that fees are set at ₦6.98 (about US$0.005) per 120-second session and only apply after users approve the charge and complete a successful transaction.

Despite the growing take-up of smartphones across the country USSD is still essential for reaching millions of Nigerians without smartphones or reliable internet, particularly in rural and low-income communities.