Other Service Providers To Have Greater Flexibility To Work From Home And Work From Anywhere – Parinam Law Associates

Introduction

The Ministry of Communications (“MoC”) has issued fresh guidelines vide Circular No. 18-8/2020-CS-I on 5th November 2020 (“New Guidelines”) in supersession of the ‘Terms and Conditions – Other Service Provider (OSP) Category’ dated 5th August 2008 and its amendments (“Old Guidelines”) to simplify the compliances required to be undertaken by Other Service Providers (“OSPs”).

Background

Under the Old Guidelines, OSPs were inter alia required to register, to deposit bank guarantees, to comply with requirements for static IPs, to comply with stringent reporting obligations and were subjected to penal provisions. These provisions have been done away with by the New Guidelines.

Overview of the New Guidelines

There have been significant relaxations for entities covered under the New Guidelines, such elimination of requirement of obtaining registration and encouragement of work from home. The key amendments of the New Guidelines are enlisted as follows:

1. Definition: The definition of ‘Application Services’ has been removed and the definition for ‘OSP’ includes only those entities that are engaged in providing voice-based business process outsourcing services.

2. Registration: The requirement of obtaining a registration has been done away with by the New Guidelines.

3. Bank Guarantee: OSPs are no longer required to provide bank guarantee for any facility or dispensation under the New Guidelines.

4. Interconnectivity: Interconnectivity between OSP centres of the same company or group of companies has been permitted.

5. EPABX: Use of Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange or EPABX based at foreign location has been permitted in case of international OSPs. However, the OSPs are required to comply with Indian laws (including applicable data privacy laws) and to maintain a copy of CDR and system logs at any of its OSP centres in India.

6. Sharing of infrastructure: The New Guidelines permit sharing of infrastructure by the Domestic OSP and International OSP. Sharing the EPABX of International OSP Centre, Domestic OSP Centre and PSTN lines for office use has been permitted, subject to OSPs ensuring that the network of the Authorized Telecom Service Providers is not bypassed.

7. WFH/ WFA: The New Guidelines encourage Work From Home (WFH) and Work From Anywhere in India (WFA). The agents at home shall be treated as Remote Agents of the OSP Centre who shall be allowed to work from any place within India. The OSP is required to maintain security by ensuring that the system logs are tamper-proof and the CDRs/ all logs of the activities carried out by the Extended Agent are maintained for one year. In furtherance, OSP shall be held accountable for any violation related to toll-bypass.

8. Security conditions: The New Guidelines have prescribed certain security conditions to be complied with by the OSP, such as, (a) maintaining the location of EPABX and client’s Data Centre of Domestic OSPs within India; (b) not engaging in the provision of any Telecom Services; (c) assisting the Department of Telecommunications or its designated field units in tracing any carriage of material resulting in nuisance, obnoxious or malicious calls, messages or communications transported through its equipment and network, etc.

Conclusion

The New Guidelines simplify and ease operations for OSPs by increasing flexibility and promoting the concept of Work From Anywhere amidst the global pandemic.