#ISP License Categories in India

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ISP License Requirements for Starting Broadband Services in India Starting a broadband service in India can be a lucrative venture, given the country's growing demand for high-speed internet. For More Details

[emedpharmatech]

Online Pharmacy – A Brief History

With access to data at our fingertips, there is additionally easy access to prescription medication. With a single click—in addition to free shipping—acquiring prescription medications has become simpler than getting them at traditional brick-and-mortar pharmacies. Also, in some cases, it’s more affordable.

Getting to that place has been a procedure that is moved at a similarly quick pace as the growth of the internet. It hasn’t been simple and easy, nor should it be with regards to giving health care. The mission of the online pharmacy to give access to reasonable medication is additionally accompanied by ensuring security and safety to the consumer.

Beginnings

The earliest years of internet pharmacies take after that of the mail-order patent drugs from the late 19th century with its trade-in questionable cures. While improved manufacturing processes and scientific advances allowed for better medicines to be made accessible to the public, practices persisted and shady cures. More grounded regulation over mail-order commerce obstructed much of what could be sent by post. In 1904, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) was established to battle dangerous manufacturers of disreputable medicines and monitors the pharmacists’ practices.

By the 1990s the digital marketplace had started to emerge as a destination for purchasers. Just as Amazon.com was growing outward from being the biggest bookstore ever to turning into a huge commercial complex, more organizations were turning out to be one-stop, single-click shopping hubs. Some bigger retail chains and pharmacies were still brick-and-mortar establishments where individuals would show up with a doctor’s prescription and get medicines on-premises. Progressively there was a need to expand on to the internet.

Drugstore.com was launched in 1999. It was not the main online pharmacy, yet it was the primary that offered a secure, safe service for shoppers. Afterwards, more pharmacies started to design websites both reputable and disreputable. The NABP launched the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program where reputable online pharmacies could apply to be registered as a trustworthy site. Sites with their “.pharmacy” domain name can be recorded on their “safe. pharmacy” website. Drugstore.com and most online pharmacies joined with significant chains got their VIPPS approval in 2003.

The Internet Market of Pharmaceuticals

The internet has revolutionized and transformed our lives, procurement practices, communication, and strategies. As access to the internet increases, its utilization to look for health data is likewise expanding. Estimates worldwide show that around 4.5% of all internet searches are connected to health-related data or questions. Population-based surveys found that nearly 71% of online users in Europe and 72% of the online population in the US, browsed for health information at least once in the past year. These tendencies are additionally extended by mobile device usage. However, consumers go to the internet today not only for retrieving health data, yet additionally to self-diagnose and get different health services or products.

As per an early definition by Fung et al, an online pharmacy is an internet-based merchant (legal or illegal), which sells medication and may work as an independent internet-only site, an online part of “brick-and-mortar” pharmacy, or sites showing a partnership among pharmacies. Briefly, an online pharmacy is a website offering to distribute, dispense, or deliver medication on the web directly to customers. The quick expansion of the internet has expanded the online pharmacy market, the shift towards self-diagnosing from the direct doctor-patient relations, customer experience in online purchases, the ever-increasing digital health, the simplicity of distance selling and mail-order trade.

The internet’s supply of pharmaceuticals has developed in numerous ways and as per the various models in each part of the world. This is because of diverse regulatory, cultural environments, and economic. The online pharmacy market in the US is fundamentally based on the prescription, while in Europe, this segment is still shaping as per a nonprescription based model. Today, online pharmacies can be accessed all around the world. In this way, the legislative and economic perspectives ought to be considered throughout each nation, globally. Thusly, online pharmacies create regulatory confusion as health services and pharmaceuticals “move” between jurisdictional limits. Henceforth, the countries of delivery and operation must be evaluated. While the country of operation decides the authorization requirements and the quality assurance standards in support of the practice of online selling of drugs, mail-order must be acted as per the latter. Be that as it may, since numerous illegitimate websites are unwilling to show their actual location, one can’t be sure of the regulatory framework under which the online pharmacy is working. It is additionally complicated by the fact that national authorities are ordinarily powerless beyond their borders.

There are a few patient safety risks connected to the online purchase of medicines outside the traditional supply chain. The proportion of counterfeit medicine is assessed to be 10% overall running from under 1% in the developed nations to over 30% in developing countries, for example, India, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

The unlawful actors are principal focuses mostly on the uncontrolled sale of medications which is not allowed in the regulated drug supply system. Their marketing strategy incorporates emphasizing the most commonly preferred benefits of online pharmacies and holding data with respect to adverse effects, drug interactions, and contraindications. Almost every therapeutic category of drugs is accessible through the web. Not just the image-enhancing and performance and “lifestyle drugs”, for example, anti-baldness products, or phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors yet life-saving medicines (eg, from the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List), psychiatric, obesity, cardiologic drugs, and analgesics (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids) can be bought freely over the web.

The essential characteristics of this illegal market segment comprise in the trading of seemingly identical items in an uncontrolled domain, without any restrictions on the or on products (larger quantities can be bought) from an enormous virtual supply. In the past two decades, the internet has become an acknowledged way to buy medications because of the convenience, the potential to privacy and save money. Early surveys on the utilization of the internet for purchasing drugs show the practical reality of acquiring prescriptions or buying prescription drugs online is little. However, recent reports propose that the utilization of online pharmacies, the quantity of individuals acquiring medications, and other health items online is expanding.

International Concerns

In spite of the extending digital marketplace, the cost of most prescription drugs stayed high. As they exploited looser rules, this put Canadian pharmacies at an advantage. They joined with different pharmacies in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, India, and Turkey. This was done to keep away from supply restrictions against Canadian pharmacies, just as to take advantage of lower drug prices and increase their revenue.

With expanding numbers of Americans utilizing Canadian (and few fakes claiming to be Canadian) sites, Gabriel Levitt and Dr Tod Cooperman, M.D. helped to establish PharmacyChecker in 2002. Their main goal was to better educate the population on drug cost comparisons, just as drug safety. As they put it on their site: “We are a partner in the online buyer-driven healthcare community, looking for an open Internet environment that markets innovation and new business models, particularly those that serve the public health.”

With the worldwide expansion of prescription drug sites engaging in dangerous and fraudulent practices, Interpol launched “Operation Pangea” in 2008. Pangea focuses on “the three principal elements utilized by illegal websites to conduct their trade—payment systems, Internet Service Provider (ISP), and the delivery service.” Since its opening shot, Pangea has closed down a large number of websites and seized millions of pills and resources of over USD $80 million. It proceeds right up 'til the present time.

Role of Consumers

Customer awareness is the key to check such fraudulent practices; purchasers should be educated about the need to confirm the authenticity of the service provider just as the product and to avoid sites that sell drugs without a legitimate prescription. Great online pharmacies have well-defined quality benchmarks and safety, uncomplicated privacy and security policies, and licensed pharmacists on a roll. Clinicians ought to familiarize themselves with a couple of reputable and legitimate online pharmacies that they may prescribe to their patients. A mutual awareness of the online purchase of medicines by the patient is essential for better patient management and avoidance of the consequences of self-medication. We have to consider the consumers' inclinations and interests for online pharmacies to improve a symbiotic the pharmacist- physician-patient relationship. These measures combined with sufficient monitoring from regulators can enable the purchaser to receive rich rewards of these pharmacies, sans the inborn danger included.

The advantages of online dispensing

Legitimate online pharmacies process new prescriptions similarly traditional drugstores do: The patient mails the doctor's script to the online drugstore or requests his doctor to phone it in or fax it.

Certain safeguards are set up: Online pharmacies require patients to finish a form asking not only for billing information, yet for a list of all prescription and any medical conditions. When the patient needs a top off, he can place the order with a couple of mouse clicks.

While Internet orders are lightning-fast, deliveries are as slow as the US mail, since that is the way online pharmacies normally get medications into patients' hands. Obviously, overnight delivery service is an option- but the additional cost can check the price advantage a Web site offers. Same-day service is generally conceivable just when an online pharmacy is working couple with a bricks-and-mortar counterpart. The need to depend on "snail-mail" clarifies why online pharmacies, similar to mail-order pharmacies, manage medications for chronic illnesses.

Online pharmacies may do not have the convenience of local drugstores, however, they benefit from not having to paint, clean, fix and warm those retail outlets, which permits them to sell their items for less. Smart Money magazine just shopped for Lipitor and discovered that online pharmacies charged around $50 for 30 10-mg tablets. The maximum, bricks-and-mortar pharmacies charged $65 on average. Online pharmacies likewise had the most minimal prices for two other well-known drugs, amoxicillin and Claritin. Taking into account that a few sites ship for free, the deals are genuinely enticing for the individual who pays for their own medications.

What’s Next?

Stateside, the effort to bring reasonable prescriptions while fighting fraudulent and illegal sites keep going on. In 2010, the Obama Administration through the White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) made the Center for Safe and Internet Pharmacies (CSIP), as a feature of an effort to manage intellectual property infringement. Working with LegitScript and the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, CSIP keeps on attempting to identify and close down rogue pharmacies and discourage purchasers from utilizing them. The push additionally incorporates recruiting search engines, for example, Google, domain registrars and credit card organizations to help in the battle.

In 2016, Walgreens shuttered Drugstore —after purchasing it for almost $430 million for it in 2011. The future of significant online pharmacies is by all accounts one where they are collapsed into a bigger parent organization's site. The brick-and-mortar establishments won’t be leaving any time soon, however, the number has reduced.

The struggle to give affordable prescription drugs will proceed for years to come. With a proceeding with organization among national and worldwide offices and privately owned businesses giving diligent oversight, the number of awful actors will diminish, and legitimate rivalry will assist with making a reasonable commercial centre.

As a leading pharma solution company, we can build you an on-demand medicine ordering and delivery app. Regardless of whether you’re a single-store pharmacy, a chain of pharmacies or are essentially in the final lap of understanding how to build an online pharmacy business, both you and your customers can enormously benefit by a pharmacy website and an app. The digital platform automatizes numerous tasks and reduces expenses. Also, the best part is analytics can assist you with understanding the buying patterns and improve continuously.

Connect with us today to see how our consulting can benefit. With a full-time team of in-house pharmacy consultant experts, EMedStore can answer any queries that you have in all spheres of your business. Contact us online or call us on +91 973 771 2429.

[neptunecreek]

As FCC Contemplates Repealing Net Neutrality Protections, Indian Telecom Regulator Reaffirms Support for Principles of Non-Discrimination

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improper discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services. Even as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing a plan to end net neutrality protections in the U.S., India's telecom regulator has called for strengthening the principle of non-discriminatory access to the Internet.

This week the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended amending all existing ISP licenses in India to explicitly prohibit discriminatory traffic management practices. Having rules in place that restrict ISPs and telecom providers' ability to control access to content via their networks is important for a free and an open Internet. Such rules prevent network providers from degrading the quality of service or blocking access to apps to earn revenue or to limit competition.

The FCC's Open Order 2015 had also banned throttling, blocking and paid prioritization in the provision of broadband Internet access service. Unfortunately, as of last week FCC has proposed eliminating these bright-line rules against blocking, throttling, and pay-to-play in favor of a simplistic transparency requirement. Even as the FCC attempts to create a pay-for-play Internet in India TRAI seems to be adopting a layered framework for regulatory intervention designed around two closely interrelated areas.

Regulatory Parity

First, TRAI has been working to create reasonable and equal rules to govern telecom service providers (TSPs) and Over-the-top (OTT) services. OTT services refers to communication or non-communication based services that ride on telecom operators network. In India, TSPs operate under a licensing regime which come with strict obligations. On the other hand OTTs have flourished without such regulations. The disparity in regulation was not an issue when OTT services were new. Their rapid growth over the years and shrinking telecom revenues led to demands for introducing licensing for OTTs or creating restrictions on the services which they may offer.

While it is important to create uniformity in the regulation of functionally equivalent services, calls for regulating Internet based OTT service providers ignore the differences that exist between them and telecom operators. While TSPs operate at both the network and application layer, OTTs can only function at the application layer of the Internet. Therefore, it is inappropriate to bring OTT service providers under the licensing regime similar to those that currently apply to TSPs.

Moreover, the advent of 4G technology has allowed for changes in the network architecture which in turn have helped markets evolve and ushered in regulatory changes. For example, traditional telecom services like voice calls are also capable of being delivered over an IP based network and may share the same infrastructure as Internet based services. Content providers are no longer reliant on telecom operators for last-mile access and are using content delivery networks (CDNs) to directly interconnect.

Over the years India has also moved to the Unified Licensing regime in which, the Unified License with authorisation for Access Services (ULA) now allows for interconnection between IP Telephony and the telecom network. TRAI recent interventions suggest a principles based approach that is cognizant of these new, complex and evolving dynamics. In TRAI's "Recommendations on Regulatory framework for Internet Telephony" issued in October 2017, the authority notes "that as per the present licensing framework, Internet Telephony service can be provided independent of the Internet access service. In other words, the Internet Telephony service is un-tethered from the underlying access network.”

Importantly, TRAI's has limited its recommendations on VoIP to communication OTT players. The mandate of licensing and/or regulating non-communication OTTs is that of the Parliament and will require a major overhaul of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Broadcasting legislations. By staying within its mandate and not crafting regulations for non-communication OTTs, TRAI has left the door open for regulating such services through instruments outside of a stifling licensing regime.

Codifying Net Neutrality

In parallel to creating uniformity of regulation TRAI's interventions have also been focused on codifying the principle of net neutrality including its different components and exceptions. In February 2016 TRAI issued an order prohibiting differential pricing which led to Facebook's Free Basics programme to be banned in India. TRAI's latest recommendations on net neutrality focus on modifying licensing terms fall under this second category of TRAI's interventions.

Unlike its order on differential pricing order TRAI's latest recommendations on licensing issues are not binding. This is because while TRAI has the power to frame regulations on issues such as pricing, QoS, and interconnection, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has final authority on matters related to granting or modification of licences in India. But if TRAI's recommendations are accepted by the DoT, ISPs in India will be explicitly prohibited from and penalised for blocking, throttling, slowing down, or granting preferential speeds or treatment to any content on their networks.

The recommendations also lay down a set of principles for introducing net neutrality. TRAI recommends that the principle of non-discriminatory treatment of content should apply specifically to Internet access services. TRAI also suggests that network management should be a permissible exception to net neutrality noting "that allowing TSPs to carry out reasonable traffic management practices is necessary for delivering IP traffic on best efforts, which is essential to the design of the Internet."

TRAI has advised exceptions for "other legitimate purposes" from the requirements of non-discriminatory treatment in the provision of Internet access services. Exceptions have been provided for congestion management, for blocking unlawful content pursuant to a court or government order, and for maintaining security and integrity of the network. Discrimination in traffic management has also been recommended for Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) as they do not change the priority of the data packets.

TRAI specifies that exceptions to net neutrality should only be allowed when they meet the basic requirements of reasonableness. In other words, there must be legitimate grounds for network management such as maintaining integrity of the network or for user security and/or if the user has specifically requested for such a service. It also recommends transparency in network management and advises that DoT should retain the flexibility in licensing regime to specify further details and change regulations regarding the scope and assessment of reasonable traffic management practices.

The authority has also advised for supplementing "existing disclosure and transparency requirements by framing additional regulations in this regard."  While TRAI has not specified what such regulations should look like the recommendation essentially seeks to introduce a transparency requirement for standardised reporting of network management practices, service information including privacy policy and redressal options and most importantly the exercise of exceptions to net neutrality.  

Finally, TRAI introduces the concept of a multi-stakeholder, not-for-profit body led by industry, with ISPs, telecommunications companies, large and small content providers, representatives from research and academia, civil society organisations and consumer representatives be created for monitoring traffic management in India. It is unclear why such it recommends that such a cooperation platform be industry led but one reason could be because transparency enforcement applies most to private companies.

Specialized Services

TRAI has also introduced the concept of "Specialized Services" in its recommendations on differential access. TRAI defines the concept as “services other than Internet access services that are optimized for specific content, protocols or user equipment, where the optimization is necessary in order to meet specific quality of service requirements.” In other words specialised services refers to services provided on a network that is either physically distinct from the Internet using different pipes or logically distinct from the Internet using access controls over the same pipes.

Following TRAI's definition any service that demand high QoS (remote surgeries) or for which best efforts delivery is not feasible on the Internet (autonomous vehicles). Similarly services being provided over a Closed Electronics Communications Network would qualify for being classified as specialized service. TRAI suggests creating an exception from net neutrality obligations for such special categories of services. Similar exceptions have been provided in in the EU through Amendment 236. On the other hand, regulators in Netherlands, have avoided creating exceptions for specialised services based on the rationale that defining the concept is not necessary to protect the functioning of managed, non-Internet based services.

TRAI's recognition of specalized services is an important development. Going forward, the concept of specalized services will be relevant for its intervention on creating regulatory parity on a number of issues currently under consultation. The US the FCC Open Order 2010 states that “specialized services” such as facilities - based VoIP and Internet Protocol - video offerings differ from broadband Internet access service and may drive additional private investment in broadband networks. The FCC had also pointed out that such services can provide end users valued services, supplementing the benefits of the open Internet. It remains to be seen if the definition of specalized services will be tailored and applied in other areas such as Internet telephony and IoT.

The recognition of specalized services is also an important principle from the perspective of codifying exceptions for net neutrality. Provisioning exceptions for speclaized services will allow ISPs to charge for providing guaranteed levels of service and quality for certain forms of data or time sensitive communication.  Concerns have been raised that establishing conditions for violations of net neutrality regulators creates the possibility that network operators may prioritise high quality specialised services over the provisioning of "standard" Internet. Addressing such issues TRAI has laid down the parameters such as for the provision of specialized services. It notes, "While allowing for the provision of specialised services, service providers should ensure that they have adequate network capacity to offer the critical services in addition to the overall provision of Internet Access Services.”

TRAI has also specified some categories that qualify for specalized services, “The license agreement identifies the categories of services that can be offered by licensed service providers. This includes the provision of VoIP and IPTV services, which may also qualify as specialised services under the suggested definition.” It has also recommended that DoT retain the flexibility to "amend the license from time to time to specify the categories of services permitted to be carried out by licensed service providers."

Overall the recommendations are good news for both users' right to a free and open Internet in India and creating a stable regulatory environment for businesses to operate there. The strong recommendations are also reflective of the giant strides the Indian telecom regulator has made in its approach to taking a nuanced approach to this complex issue. TRAI's leadership, its transparency and efforts made to listen to the voices of its citizens create a stark contrast with the FCC's regressive approach.

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[bharatfibernet-blog]

Internet service provider

Imagine a computer system with a built-in modem and a router, but without an internet connection. It is not of much use, is it? Now imagine a system with access to the worldwide web. Imagine the universe of knowledge it opens up to the user at just a click of a mouse. Learning and seeing is so much more due to the presence of the internet. All thanks to the internet service provider. So, who is an internet service provider (ISP)? Very simply put, the internet service provider is a company that provides access to the internet for a fee. It connects your computer to various servers across the world. Every action request that you type into the computer is routed through the IPS to the servers to its destination. For example, when you write an email and send it, it is the ISP that connects the mail to the server and then through other servers to its destination. With the development of the internet in the 1980s, the demand for internet access from the public started rising. The first commercial ISP was established in Australia and the US in 1989. In India, the government opened the internet service sector to private players in 1998. By 2006, more than 389 ISPs had been licensed and were providing services to 8 million internet subscribers in the country. 

The department of telecommunications had then said that any company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 would be eligible to seek a license to become an internet service provider even if it did not have prior experience in the information technology or telecommunications services. The government had also divided the service areas into three categories including: Category A – Whole of India Category B – 20 territorial telecom circles and four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Category C – Secondary Switching Area. In 2007, the government revised the guidelines of licensing and decided to issue a single licence with restrictions in the usage of internet telephony. The final guidelines for Unified Licence for internet service providers were issued in 2013. Prior to this, in 2010 the government auctioned the spectrum for 3G and 4G internet service in the broadband wireless segment. By 2013, the user base of internet users in India had reached over 205 million. By then, the number of internet service providers offering broadband service had also increased to 161 of which top providers included BSNL, MTNL, Bharti Airtel, Hathway and You Broadband. Internet services providers are often faced with challenges such as a lower average bandwidth of broadband. Another problem is low demand in rural areas or concentration of demand in urban areas. To address the problem of poor internet penetration in rural areas, the government has introduced subsidized tariffs for rural subscribers. India is yet to overcome these challenges beyond which lies huge potential of business for internet service providers.

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Procedure for Acquire an ISP License in India Here are simple steps to obtain an ISP license in India: Step 1- Register Your Company. Step 2- Select Your ISP Category. Step 3- Meet Budgeting and Financial Requirements. Step 4- Complete the Application Form. Step 5- Submit Your Application...

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