New Delhi, Apr 20: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today said the Government owned National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI's) infrastructure has not been optimally utilised and has pointed out several abberations in its working.

TRAI's has forwarded its recommendations to the Communications and IT Ministry along with several recommendations to make it more effective.

The Authority has observed that NIXI's infrastructure has not been utilised optimally as only 27 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) out of 135 operational ISPs have joined NIXI at four nodes.

Various reasons like high cost of leased line to connect to NIXI node, non availability of NIXI nodes at all state capitals, high cost to obtain Autonomous System (AS) number have been indicated for not joining the NIXI.

It is also observed at times that pipe size of ISPs connecting to NIXI is inadequate to cater to the expected internet traffic.

The main purpose of setting up of NIXI by DIT, Government of India in 2003 was to ensure that Internet traffic, originating and destined for India, should be routed within India.

Many a time ISPs connected at NIXI are neither announcing nor accepting all the routes.

Since data traffic flow is one way, hop by hop, routed by analysing the destination addresses based on the routes learnt, announcement and acceptance of all routes becomes crucial for effective exchange of the domestic Internet traffic.

Considering these issues impacting effectiveness of NIXI, the Authority has made the recommendations to Ministry of Communication and Information Technology suo-motu in accordance with section 11 (a) (iv) of TRAI Act 1997 for effective utilisation of NIXI.

Various options of improving effectiveness for exchanging domestic traffic within the country have been explored, which include direct domestic peering of ISPs with International Internet Bandwidth providers. While finalising the recommendations, the Authority is conscious that many of the stand-alone ISPs have limited resources and therefore recommendations to improve effectiveness of the NIXI should not unduly burden them.

The interests of the Integrated ISPs who are providing International Internet bandwidth have also been protected.

A light touch regulatory approach has been adopted and different options to improve effectiveness of NIXI have been recommended.

Major recommendations include that all the ISPs or their upstream providers (ISP who is carrying the traffic to International Internet Bandwidth providers or NIXI) shall either connect to NIXI or with International Internet bandwidth providers through direct peering link.

Compulsory announcement and acceptance of all the routes at NIXI nodes have been recommended. This will facilitate effective exchange of domestic Internet traffic at NIXI without requiring direct connectivity of ISPs at NIXI.

Similarly Quality of Service parameters of NIXI nodes has been prescribed to ensure effective functioning of the NIXI.

The initiative will substantially bring down ISP's expenditure on domestic bandwidth, which is likely to reduce content download charges resulting in net reduction in Internet and broadband usage charges.

It is hoped that implementation of these recommendations will enable ISPs to effectively use NIXI platform for exchange of domestic traffic reducing content download charges and encouraging web hosting services in India.

It will also result in better Quality of Service (QoS). Ministry of Communication and Information Technology have to act on the recommendations before the Authority can declare the regulations effective.

UNI