A farmer will be able to use the mobile phone to start a water pump without visiting his fields while his urban counterpart will be able to trigger the oven at home while still in office by sending a text from his phone. Reality may be even more cutting edge within the next decade if all that proposed in the new telecom policy fructifies.
The draft policy announced by the Union Minister of Communication and Information Kapil Sibal on Monday envisages converging telecom, broadband network and IT sector besides revisiting a host of existing laws and enacting a new Spectrum Act to ensure fair play and transparency.
While the telecom policy of 1999 was aimed at providing telephones on demand, the 2011 policy focuses on broadband on demand, making access to broadband a right, at par with health and education. Sibal said the objective of the new policy is to provide affordable, reliable and secure telecommunications services with ‘one-nation, one-license’ and free national roaming facilities.
This would essentially mean that the distinction between local and STD calls would no longer exist. Telecom operators would not require separate licences for operations in various parts of the country and a single licence would suffice. Roaming charges presently account for 8 percent of the cellular operators’ revenue. “We will seek TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) recommendations on new licences, migration to new licences and exit policy,” the minister said while announcing the policy.
“Our aim is to convert the little mobile phone into an instrument of empowerment to bridge digital divide. It will combine communication with proof of identity, financial services and a whole range of capabilities to transcend literacy barriers,” he said. Significantly, he also called for recognising the telecom sector as an infrastructure segment to allow easy finances. Currently only fixed line telephony is categorised as an infrastructure sector.
Putting a lid on the policies that resulted in the 2G scam, the minister said spectrum allocation would be de-linked from licences and radio waves would be made available at market-determined prices. The permissions will be given for its pooling, sharing and later for trading for optimal and efficient utilisation.
More frequencies in the bands of 450 MHz, 700 MHz, 1910 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz and other bands will be identified for commercial mobile services. He said the new Spectrum Act will address all issues connected with wireless licenses and their terms and conditions including reframing, withdrawal of allotted spectrum, spectrum pricing, cancellation or revocation of spectrum licenses, exemption on use of spectrum, spectrum sharing, trading.
The ministry would also bring an exit policy. This move could eventually lead to consolidation in an industry where more than a dozen players compete, keeping tariffs and margins low. The new policy of broadband on demand for all citizens will increase rural tele-density to 100 percent by the year 2020. Sibal said that special focus will be on rural and remote areas and the new policy would have a framework to make more spectrums available. The policy will focus on convergence of TV, internet and related services. Broadband download speed will be revised to 512 kbps vs 256 kbps.
Sibal said that the government will audit the use of spectrum. The policy also aims to make India a hub for telecom equipment manufacturing and will have provisions to create a corpus for R&D, IPR and entrepreneurship. The Minister pointed out that at present the electronics manufacturing remains the weak link and that an import bill of up to US $300 billion by 2020 is forecast.
Sibal admitted that fragile power supply situation and low paying capacity, especially in the rural areas, could undermine these aims. But he hastened to add that government was underlining the need for innovative design, green technology and frugal engineering to create a whole range of new indigenous designs and products.
A new machine-to-machine communication service will be introduced to help remotely operating irrigation pumps, smart grids and a host of appliances, besides making total e-governance a reality.
SOME STRATEGIES PROPOSED
- Right to Broadband: Make efforts to recognise telecom and broadband connectivity as a basic necessity like education and health.
- Revise the existing broadband download speed of 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps by 2015.
- Spur the domestic telecom equipment manufacturing segment to meet indigenous demands.
- Encourage indigenous manufacturing of cost effective mobile devices and SIM cards with enhanced features.
- Build synergies between on-going and future Government programs like e- governance, e-panchayat, NREGA, NKN, Aadhar and Aakash.
- Ensure availability of sufficient microwave spectrum to meet demand for wireless backhaul.
- Unlicensed spectrum to be made available for proliferation of wireless broadband services.
- Promote setting up of Telecommunications Standard Development Organisation (TSDO) as an autonomous body.
- Encourage digitalisation of the local cable networks.
- Allow sharing of networks and delink the licensing of networks from the delivery of service to the end users.
- Achieve ‘One Nation, Full Mobile Number Portability’
- Reposition the mobile phone to an instrument of empowerment, combine communication with proof of identity, secure financial transaction capability, and multi-lingual services that transcend the literacy barrier.
- Increasing rural tele-density from the current level of around 35 percent to 100 percent by 2020.
- Achieve 600 million broadband connections by 2020 at minimum 2 Mbps download speed.
- Provide high speed and high quality broadband access to all village panchayats through optical fiber by the year 2014.
- Promote the domestic production of telecommunication equipment to meet 80 percent of the Indian telecom sector demand by 2020.
- Promote an ecosystem for participants in Value Added Services (VAS) industry value chain to make India a global hub.
- Ensure adequate availability of spectrum and its allocation in a transparent manner through market related processes.
- Strengthen the framework to address the environmental and health related concerns pertaining to the telecom sector.
- Protect consumer interest by promoting informed consent, transparency and accountability in quality of service, tariff and usage.
- Achieve substantial transition to new Internet Protocol (IPv 6) in the country in a phased manner by 2020 and encourage an ecosystem for provision of a significantly large bouquet of services on IP platform.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Iftikhar Gilani
Quelle/Source: Tehelka, 10.10.2011
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