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Ask HN: Is it legal to use Twilio/Plivo within India

4 pointsby loneranger_11xalmost 6 years ago
Context: Want to setup a telephony solution for an Indian business with Indian customers. Would preferrably want a cloud solution with API access like Twilio. But AFAIK Indian regulations prohibit VoIP to PSTN telephony in India. So have regulations changed or Twilio/Plivo have found a way to stay compliant?

1 comment

telebone_manalmost 6 years ago
The ITU provides the answers you need, in various forms. But captured well here - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.itu.int&#x2F;ITU-D&#x2F;treg&#x2F;VoIP.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.itu.int&#x2F;ITU-D&#x2F;treg&#x2F;VoIP.pdf</a> where it says...<p>&quot;In India, VoIP is allowed, but only for computer-to-computer communications. India deregulated IP Telephony on 1 April 2002 following the ITUís World Telecommunication Policy Forum held in 2001 on the topic of ì IP Telephonyî. Indiaís proposed unified licence regime, however, would impose no restriction on VoIP telephony or other IP-enabled services, provided they are offered by operators with a unified licence that have duly paid all required registration charges.&quot;<p>..In practice, this means Twilio can terminate a call into India, as long as the route the call takes is via a licensed operator. This is Twilio&#x27;s problem, not yours. (unless it says otherwise in their terms).<p>It also means if an individual, physically within India, chooses to make an outbound call, over the Twilio service, then the endpoint has to be another IP-endpoint. Or if to a &#x27;copper cable endpoint&#x27;, then at least traverse over an appropriate Indian carrier at some point. Probably using some kind of PSTN-IP gateway. Again, Twilio&#x27;s problem and not yours (unless it says otherwise in their terms).<p>These complications were introduced to prevent people in India setting up copper cable-IP gateways, taking advantage of cheaper retail call bundles, and selling them cheap on the wholesale market. Naughty!<p>Personally, I would contact Twilio. They won&#x27;t be able to give legal advice, but they will at least tell you if they can legally facilitate the requirement.
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