Selective Banning of OTT Application
Though possible, the side effects are high to justify the execution of any of the technical options
Yesterday, TRAI published a consultation paper looking at the options of selective banning of OTT services. The request came from the 26th report of the Parliament Standing Committee on Communication and Information Technology in Dec 2021. The idea is to prevent customer agony as a result of the blanket ban on Internet services to restore law and order. The intent of selective banning is to prevent some OTT applications (like WhatsApp, FaceBook, Telegram Etc) from operating while leaving others untouched. The purpose of this note is to analyze whether an optimal blocking strategy exists which can balance all dimensions of business — cost, customer experience, and privacy.
Normal Blocking
Before we discuss the topic of selective blocking of OTT services, let’s understand how normal blocking of internet services works. This the operators do through a technical process called PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Functions). This is nothing but a set of service rules that the operator applies to the specific set of BTSs (Base Stations) that it intends to block. Through this rule, the targetted BTSs can be set for zero or very low data rates, so that all kinds of data services emanating or targeted towards them get throttled — making them useless. Note that PCRF does not discriminate between various data applications and it is also agnostic to IP addresses. It is simple to execute and is very cost-effective.
Selective Blocking (OTT level)
Selective blocking of OTT applications can get executed either at the OTT player level or at the telecom operator level. Now for the OTT player to block services in a specific geography it will need the location information of all the users. The location information can be at the GPS level or at the Cell ID level. Accessing both these pieces of information will pose significant challenges.
Let’s start with GPS-level information. In order to execute this — All the devices have to be GPS-capable. In fact, most are not. Even if they are, the OTT player has to seek permission from the user to access it. Now if sharing is made mandatory (through a govt mandate), it will create havoc — Everyone’s location will get tracked all the time and the user will have no choice but to move without the device to ensure privacy. Cell ID tracking also will pose similar challenges. Today, this information lies only with the network providers — which never shared with any application providers for the same reasons as discussed above.
Therefore it is not practically possible to selectively block applications at the OTT player level. However, one question still remains — Can the OTT players block users using their IP addresses? They can, provided they accurately get access to the user’s IP addresses in the targetted geography. But how will they? And what purpose it will serve if someone is using VPN (proxy server) to camouflage his IP address? Using VPN and proxy servers the miscreants will find ways to circumvent the blocking and will end up harming only those users for whom the strategy was devised in the first place.
Selective Blocking (Network level)
At the network level blocking can be done using the destination IP addresses of all the servers used by the OTT player. Note — the OTT players might have many servers, and some with the purpose of driving redundancy and efficiency. Adopting this strategy, the telecom operator will face many challenges. Firstly, no OTT player will like to share his IP addresses to prevent hacking and denial of service attacks. Secondly, the destination IP addresses of the OTT servers are dynamically changed to prevent tracing (by hackers). Thirdly, even if these IP addresses are accessed in real-time through URL mapping (by physically checking each and every URL where they are heading), it will still be a significant challenge for telecom operators to use them for the purpose of blocking. Why? The operators have to investigate each and every packet (originating from the BTS clusters) by doing a deep packet inspection — to identify those who they intend to block. Think about the kind of investments the operators have to make, and how will it impact the overall user experience of the consumers from the point of view of increased latency and costs.
But how come some Chinese apps got blocked by the GOI? Did it not pose similar challenges? No. To block these Chinses apps there was no need to do any deep packet investigation (DPI), as they fall in the category of “simple blocking” and not “selective blocking”. Just block the routing of traffic from India into those selected URLs and you are done. It is as simple as this. But if they show up again using a different URL then you have to identify them an block them as well.
Selective Blocking (5G Standalone)
However, the advent of 5G opens up some new possibilities. 5G standalone (not NSA), has the capability to dynamically set routing of various applications at the device level using a feature called URSP (UE route selection policy). Using this feature the network operator can decide the routing policy of data traffic emanating at the applications level from the user handsets. The purpose of this feature is to distribute traffic within the network with the intent to drive efficiency and reduce latency. Now this feature only works in 5G handsets and that too in Standalone networks. With only one SA operator here coupled with limited 5G devices on the ground (and 4G likely to stay for a long time), this to me looks like a long shot.
Conclusion
It is clear from the above discussion, selective blocking though a theoretical possibility is practically not possible to execute on the ground. Though the intent is novel, however, the side effects are too high for any of the options to be considered for execution.
