TwoCircles.net presents “Agenda for India”. Series editor is Charu Bahri.
Challenges & Solutions
“I would cite the issue of spectrum allocation and management as one of the foremost challenges of India’s telecom sector,” says Yusuf Motiwala, Founder & CEO, TringMe. “The government must wake up to the losses accumulating on account of under-utilization of spectrum and due to the delay in rolling out 3G services.”
“In truth, India’s telecom sector continues to perform really well, in spite of the worldwide recession. The sector is on the uptake and will continue to grow. However, its networks and value added services should be streamlined to cater to the growing demands of users. For instance, connections to data services sometimes don’t work because of subscriber overload. It is important that the immediate needs of subscribers and their predictable behavior are kept in mind when designing network infrastructure.”
A muslim child plays with his father’s mobile phone during the Id-Ul-Fitr festival in Mumbai
“India should model its telecom sector on the prevailing ground realities, since its market constraints vary enormously from other parts of the world. India has taken a major leap from the wired to the wireless domain – this suggests that Indian subscribers will soon access a lot more data via wireless devices vis-à-vis PCs connected to the Internet. This in itself constitutes another major leap that India should be preparing itself for.”
“The government should be more transparent in its decision-making process, especially in relation to the many players in the telecom sector. It should involve carriers, service providers and others members of the delivery chain in the process of framing revenue generation policies so as to maximize the potential of the sector. This is especially important since many policy makers are not experts in the field. An inclusive approach would also help provide consumers across India reliable connectivity of a high quality.”
“It is a given that international and Indian operators will continue to enter the fertile Indian market. Still, the government must live up to its responsibility – to act as a regulator to ensure that these operators do not erect walls that prove detrimental to the innovation that is bound to take place in this sphere. As an example, the government should create a transparent means to question an operators’ intent, if it blocks an application or service which may be taking a piece of its revenue generation pie in the short-term.”
“This multi-pronged approach would go a long way in helping India gallop in to a new era of telecom services.”
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