Parties

The information was filed by Extreme Infocom Pvt Ltd. (‘Informant’) against National Internet Exchange of India (‘OP’). ^[1]

Submissions by Informant

The Informants alleged that: (i) the OP enjoys a dominant position in the market for ‘internet exchange services for peering between content providers, CDNs and ISPs in towns/cities in India in which CDNs/content providers are not present/do not have their data centres’; (ii) OP is engaged in predatory pricing by offering its services free of cost or at reduced rates; (iii) OP’s pricing strategy led to the loss of customers for the Informant; (iv) OP’s objection to the CCI’s jurisdiction and its argument that the matter should be transferred to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (‘TRAI’) is wholly misconceived as it has failed to point out any preliminary aspects which may merit interference of TRAI; and (v) OP has failed to show that it adopted low pricing to meet competition and the social cost/ obligation cannot be considered as an objective justification for predatory pricing.

Submissions by OP

The OP has argued that: (i) the Informant has erroneously delineated the relevant market, and the correct relevant market is ‘Internet exchange services for peering between ISPs, CDNs, web enterprises, communication service providers, cloud and SaaS providers which connect to exchange Internet traffic in India’; (ii) predatory pricing allegations are unfounded as the impugned pricing strategy was temporary and aimed at creating a new market; (iii) the CCI lacks jurisdiction in the present matter since the jurisdictional aspects involved in it have to be adjudicated by the sectoral regulator i.e., TRAI/Department of Telecommunications (‘DoT’); and (iv) there are other players in the relevant market indicating lack of entry barriers in the market. Thus, OP does not enjoy dominance in the relevant market.

Findings by CCI

The CCI observed that: (i) the obligation to comply with the provisions of the Act and maintain fair competition in the market is independent of the obligation to comply with the provisions of TRAI Act/Regulations, and violation of one need not ipso facto result in violation of the other. Therefore, the CCI has jurisdiction in the instant matter; (ii) in terms of the relevant market, it is ‘provision of internet exchange services in India’; and (iii) the OP does not hold a dominant position in the relevant market.

Since no prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of the Act was made out, the CCI dismissed the matter under Section 26(2) of the Act.

[1] In Re: Extreme Infocom Pvt. Ltd and National Internet Exchange of India, Case No. 10 of 2023.