Amid debates over cost-sharing between telecom companies and OTT service providers, Singapore-based Internet calling start-up nanu has said it is already paying telecom companies in India about $ 20,000 a month for using their infrastructure to deliver free voice calls.
“We believe strongly that over the top (OTTs) service providers should be contributing back into the network. It would sustain the viability of telecom networks in India,” Martin Nygate, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at nanu said, while pointing out that the problem is that these applications at present do not have a credible revenue stream and hence cannot pay the telecom companies.
nanu, spelt with no upper case, has seen about 2.6 million downloads globally, of which 60 per cent are from India.
New business model Mr Nygate said that company’s “new business model” allows it to pay telecom companies.
“We generate revenues from advertisements which get played instead of a caller tune. Every time you make a call, there is at least a 10-second period where you wait for the person at the other end to pick up the call and in that time, we fit in a voice-over ad.
“We pay close to $20,000 dollars to Indian telecom companies,” he said.
The firm is working with almost all telecom operators in the country, he said, though he did not
“In India, we launched in October last year. The market for us is growing very fast here. In fact, a lot of our users worldwide are actually making calls back to India.
So this means is that a lot of expat Indians are using nanu to call back home free of charge,” Mr Nygate said.
