“Government has finalised the spectrum sharing guidelines and will notify the same in a few days while thespectrum trading rules, which are also in the last phase of finalisation will be shared by the end of this month”, shared Mr Rakesh Garg, Chairman, Telecom Commission & Secretary (Deptt of Telecom), Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India while addressing the CII Telecom Convergence Summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in the national capital, here today.
“Our Govt’s objective is to enable mobile operators to utilise / sell the excess available airwaves in a better way and to check the call drop issue. The guidelines have been finalised in such a way as to promote India as one of the most favoured destination to do business in the telecom industry”, he added.
"The issue of spectrum sharing which was hanging for a long time has now been finally approved and the related guidelines are ready and have been sent to the Telecom minister for his final approval and will be notified by coming Monday”, he further informed.
"The government had decided two years back that spectrum sharing and trading will be allowed but the guidelines have not been notified so far. Now, the Cabinet has given its nod for both sharing and trading of spectrum," added Mr Garg.
It may be shared here that the government had approved sharing guidelines on August 12 that provide operators an alternative to share the unused or excess spectrum available with them with other players. Spectrum trading is an alternative for operators to acquire more spectrum. In this case, a telecom operator can sell its right to use spectrum to another mobile service provider, which is not allowed under spectrum sharing rules.
Once these guidelines are notified, telecom operators would be able to share their spectrum holding that will help them in decongesting their networks and provide quality phone call services.
Sharing the Govt’s key policy initiatives in the telecom sector, he announced that “Considering optical fibre network as the backbone of the telecom sector, we have reached it out to 25000 villages, i.e 60,000 kilometres in the last one year and aim to reach to another 55,000 villages in the next 4-5 years. We have also created an exclusive plan for reaching out the mobile connectivity to the Himalayan states like Uttarakhand, Himachal, J&K etc and the remote villages across the hilly states and the North east region, with 2000 towers already put up and another 3000 to be put up soon. A special financial package has been allocated for the same”.
He also announced that “We have decided to allow private players freedom to spread their own optical fibre from the Block level to the various districts and then the villages where there are not more than 2 Pvt players to make the system more robust. As against this, in the earlier practice, the private player did not have a choice and had to just get connectivity from the nearest point of purchase to the village. The new system will help the Pvt Players provide end to end connectivity services to consumers in villages. To attain this, we have also increased our expected spending from Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 75,000 crores”.
“The government has identified broadband and mobile networks as key growth pillars under Digital India, but it will serve the purpose by bringing about favourable policy initiatives, lesser regulatory hurdles, process improvements, removing capacity constraints, adopting efficient operational models and by leveraging the emerging technologies like Cloud, Social Media, Analytics and mobility", highlighted Mr Umang Das, CIITelecom Convergence Summit Chairman & Chief Mentor - Viom Networks Ltd & Vice Chairman, Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association.
“There is immense potential for the industry under Digital India programme, which envisages various projects worth about Rs 1 lakh crore to transform the country into a digitally empowered and connected knowledge economy by providing high speed Internet @ 100 mbps at all 2.5 lakh gram panchayat level, on demand availability of government services like health and education and digital literacy of citizens. To enable this, we need to integrate both fibre and tower operations. Fibre network should be spread across till towers and the towers in turn lead to last mile connectivity, because in India, mobile network is strong as compared to other countries where landline is strong. CII would work with the government and figure out where the Indian ICT industry can help in implementing this vision of a digital India”, added Mr Das.
“Digital India key building blocks are universal broadband connectivity across urban and rural areas to enable e-governance and e-services availability to all. Connectivity along with Smart Applications will enable delivery of e-services and e-Governance to Citizens and IoT eco-system will play a key role to make this happen, especially for application in connected mobility, smart cities, healthcare, industry and Public Safety areas. We are at the cusp of very interesting time in India. To make Digital India successful we need a robust, and possibly a never seen before level of telecom infrastructure given the diversity, complexity and expanse of India. I strongly believe that the Digital India initiative can make a great difference to the country right now. To accomplish a truly Digital India, the government must start by building on the infrastructure that is already in place, and integrating the right technology — to accelerate the delivery of services that create a more connected society.” shared Mr Sandeep Girotra, Vice President and Head of India Market, Nokia Networks.
“Lack of telecom infrastructure in semi-rural and rural areas is one of the major hindrances in tapping the huge rural potential market, going forward. The service providers have to incur a huge initial fixed cost to enter rural service areas. Further, as many rural areas in India lack basic infrastructure such as road and power, developing telecom infrastructure in these areas involve greater logistical risks and also extend the time taken to roll out telecom services. The lack of trained personnel in the rural area to operate and maintain the cellular infrastructure, especially passive infrastructure such as towers, is also seen as a hurdle for extending telecom services to the under penetrated rural areas. Hence government should provide incentives in these areas”, added Mr Shree Parthasarathy, Senior Director, Deloitte.
“An interesting aspect about India is that 75 % of the new internet users and 50 % of the existing net users are active only on mobile phones as against 10 – 15 % in China and US. Hence, we need to innovate, integrate and find Applications and solutions which are efficient, specific to mobile users, suitable for viewing on small screens in order to cater efficiently to this industry with $ 3 trillion potential globally”, shared Mr Arvind Bali, Director & Chief Executive Officer, Videocon Telecommunications Ltd.
18 September 2015
New Delhi