The Hindu Business Line : Paging industry in death throes

For the first time, the quarterly report on the telecom sector brought out by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, has not recorded the status of the once thriving paging industry. The six surviving paging operators have also stopped reporting the subscribers numbers to the telecom regulator and are now focussing on revenues from offering call centre solutions.

"There is nothing to report anymore since the paging subscribers base is very miniscule. Between the six operators, there would be subscriber base of less than one lakh and the numbers are dwindling day by day. We are losing at least Rs 25-30 lakh a month on servicing the remaining few customers. India is the first country where paging industry is being wiped out," said Mr Pravin Kumar, Managing Director, DSS Mobile, which owns the Mobilink brand.

At its peak there were more than 7 lakh paging subscribers across the country growing at 30 per cent annually. However, the launch of short messaging service by cellular operators sounded the death knell for paging services.

Senior TRAI officials said that paging as a means of communication has lost its hold in the market in the wake of newer technologies. "The subscriber base has declined drastically over the last two years and operators do not seem interested in submitting the subscriber base anymore. Therefore the quarterly report did not have the status of the sector."

But operators blame the Government for letting the paging industry go sick. "The argument that technological development has phased out paging in the country is not correct. Paging thrives in more developed countries such as the US and China. It is unfortunate that the Indian Government has been blind to the problems faced by the industry," said a paging operator. Pagelink, Mobilink, RPG Paging and Modipage - paging companies that were once household names - are today running call centres. "The Government and the regulator have completely ignored the paging industry. They are busy doling out tens and thousands of crore rupees as compensation to cellular operators," said Mr Deepak Malhotra, Chairman and Managing Director of Pagelink, owned by the Delhi-based Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) group. Paging operators have also gone to the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) seeking compensation. "When we signed the licence agreement with the Government, text messaging was the sole domain of the paging companies. Slowly, cellular companies started offering short messaging services, that too without paying any licence fee. So the Government should waive our licence fee also - or at least compensate us, from the revenues earned from SMS services," said a paging operator.

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