250 million Phone Subscribers in the Country – Shri A.Raja
Delhi India
TLNS

Shri A.Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology has said that in the past decade, the Indian telecom sector has gone through a total transformation. India now has the fastest growing telecom sector adding more than seven million subscribers every month and have almost reached 250 million subscribers three months ahead of the target date. Shri Raja was speaking at Curtain Raiser Ceremony of India Telecom-2007 here today. The growth momentum has shifted in a big way to small towns and rural areas. What lies ahead is far greater and far tougher than the road that travelled so far, he said.

The Minister said that while we have been keeping pace with the latest technological advances in telecommunications, the indigenous value addition in our networks has been on a much lower side. A close look, however, reveals that we are far from reaping the benefits of the potential that exists. Rapidly changing technology along with a liberalised import regime has led to a situation where most of the equipment is currently imported. While the increasing size of Indian telecom market has encouraged most of the global telecom players to set up their manufacturing facilities in India, there is certainly a lot of scope to adopt the technology and undertake further indigenous value addition to meet the day to day need of the common man and India specific requirements.

In such a situation, setting up of these Centers of Excellence was long overdue. Therefore, we have put them in place in a record time of only 9 months, Shri Raja said. These COEs being established in Public Private Partnership mode at the top most academic institutions of the country are needed to embolden the R&D efforts and enhance the much needed talent pool. COEs can play a catalytic role in our endeavours. It would be good idea for these COEs to develop telecom and IT solutions for rural areas of India at an affordable price, the Minister said. Two MoUs were signed today in this regard. The first between IIM Ahmedabad, IDEA and DoT and the second between IIT Kharagpur, Vodafone Essar and DoT.

He congratulated IDEA, Vodafone-Essar, IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Kharagpur and the industry associations for this initiative. The other proposed COEs are not far behind, he added. The remaining 5 COEs will be set up progressively in the first half of 2008. He urged the COEs to focus on niche areas.

In his key note address Shri D.S.Mathur, Secretary, Department of Telecommunication said this is a historic day for the Department and commended the academic institutes and the telecom service providers along with their industry associations for their initiative and enthusiasm in nurturing and promoting the concept of setting up of Telecom Centres of Excellence.

The India Telecom 2007 Conference is scheduled to be held from December 12 to 15, 2007 at New Delhi.

Spectrum release: Minister meeting Security Advisor today

To get radio waves vacated from Defence forces

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct. 16 The Communications and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, is set to meet the National Security Advisor, Mr M.K. Narayanan, on Wednesday to discuss the release of spectrum for mobile operators.

The outcome of the crucial meeting will have a far reaching impact on the policy being formulated for issuing spectrum to over 500 claimants.

About 40 new companies have applied for new telecom licences even as existing operators are also demanding more spectrum.

The NSA was given the mandate by a Group of Ministers headed by the External Affairs, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, to figure out ways to get spectrum vacated from the Defence forces.

While the Defence has said that it is not prepared to vacate spectrum for second generation mobile (2G) services until the Department of Telecom sets up an alternative medium of communication, the Communications Ministry has expressed confidence that the radio waves will be available by November. “I am meeting the NSA tomorrow... hope to get spectrum soon,” Mr Raja said on the sidelines of a function organised by FICCI.

While the DoT has been of late focusing more on 2G mobile policy, if the Defence decides to initially release 3G spectrum first, then the telecom department will have to rethink its plan of action.

DoT officials said that they are also working on the 3G policy simultaneously to be ready for such an eventuality.

The DoT Secretary, Mr Dinesh Mathur, today said the DoT is looking at various options like auctioning of 3G spectrum or standard allotment.

3G auction

If DoT decides to auction 3G spectrum, foreign players could bid for 3G licences in India.

However, if Mr Raja manages to get 2G spectrum, then it is unlikely that the Government will change its existing policy for new applicants.

“Having received so many applications, we cannot change the policy. Existing criteria will be applied in the background of TRAI recommendations to allocate spectrum to new and existing players,” the Minister said.

He added that once DoT scrutinises all the 500 applications, then the Ministry would spell out the details of the policy especially on the subscriber-based allocation method.

Mr Mathur said that the final policy could be announced within the next one week.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

India may allow foreign carriers to bid for 3G spectrum

Bloomberg / New Delhi October 17, 2007

India might allow overseas mobile-phone carriers to bid for licences to provide third-generation or 3G services, India's telecom secretary, DS Mathur, said today.

The government had not decided whether the airwaves will be auctioned or allocated, Mathur added.

India also hasn't set a deadline for issuing recommendations on providing spectrum for 3G services, he said.

“If we decide on auctioning, then anybody can bid, even foreign players,“ Mathur said. “There is space for three to four operators, including the existing ones,” he added.

The government's proposal to allow overseas carriers to bid for 3G wireless services, which allow faster downloads of music and videos on mobile phones, would be in opposition to the recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in September last year.

The regulator wanted such frequencies to be auctioned only to existing Indian companies. India added a record 8.31 million wireless subscribers in August as call rates as low as 1 US cent a minute lured new users.

Carriers such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's largest mobile-phone operator, expanded networks in rural areas, where less than 6 per cent of the people own mobile phones.

The growth in wireless subscribers has attracted as many as 30 companies, including AT&T Inc, Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd and the Videocon Group.

Source: Business Standard

DoT may not alter licensing norms for new applicants

Corporate Bureau
Posted online: Tuesday , October 16, 2007 at 2354 hrs IST

New Delhi, Oct 16 The department of telecom (DoT) is not likely to change norms for new applicants seeking licences.

Indicating this, communications and IT minister A Raja said on Tuesday the existing telecom policy coupled with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendations on “reforms in licensing regime” would decide the fate of over 500 applications.

“Having received so many applications, we cannot change the policy. Existing criteria will be applied in the background of Trai recommendations to allocate spectrum to new and existing players,” Raja said on the sidelines of a function organised by Ficci. Raja will meet national security advisor M K Narayanan on Wedesday seeking early vacation of spectrum from the defence. Narayanan is the chairman of the committee constituted by ministries of defence and telecom to work out details for vacating spectrum from defence services.

On the new applicants, the minister said he would take a final decision once the whole the process, including scrutiny of over 500 applications for new licences and ways to allocate frequency by the telecom commission, was completed.

DoT secretary D S Mathur later told reporters the telecom commission had taken a final view and it had been sent to the minister. “We shall discuss the modalities with the minister and announce the criteria very soon, may be within a week,” he added.

A host of realty players like DLF, Parsvnath, Unitech and others, including AT&T, Shyam Telecom, Hindujas, Bycell, promoters of Ispat Industries and HFCL have lined up for licences, apart from the existing ones who have got licenses but are waiting for spectrum to roll out or expand their services.

Meanwhile, the government has said it will set up five Centres of Excellence (CoE) in the first half of 2008.

Source: The Financial Express

Telecom News dated 17-10-2007.