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V. Rishi Kumar

"We need to have a single regulator to address all these issues such as Ofcom in the UK, which handles five broad areas under its framework."

Hyderabad , July 28

THE New Telecom Policy 2005 now under way should be called the ICT policy since convergence encompasses more sectors compared to NTP 1999. This also calls for a single regulator.

This new framework, for which industry inputs have been invited, will hold the key to future growth in terms of telecom penetration and bridging the digital divide. It is expected to ensure a level playing field in various facets such as spectrum and bandwidth sharing.

Mr Deepak Maheshwari, Secretary of Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), told Business Line: "It is high time we referred to this framework as the new ICT policy. The Internet is becoming a common platform bringing in convergence. While IT continues to be a net exporter, telecom is still a net importer both of technology as also hardware, therefore an holistic approach is necessary."

He added: "Significantly, with the creation of the ICT Ministry, we need to have a single regulator to address all these issues, like Ofcom (Office of Communications) in the UK, which handles five broad areas under its framework."

According to Mr Maheshwari, independent studies have shown that every rupee invested in the telecom sector has the potential to bring three rupees in additional investments.

A recent study by the Department of ICT and the National Council of Applied Economic Research

(NCAER) has shown that for every rupee invested in telecom in India, about Rs 2.466 comes through from its spin-off effect.

Today, the ICT sector contributes about 3.82 per cent of the country's GDP, and if the policy framework provides a level playing field, this could probably go up to 5 per cent by the year 2007.

The country's teledensity, now at about 10 per cent, can be rapidly increased and the rural density can go up to 10 per cent by 2007.

Large operators such as BSNL, Reliance, and Tata Teleservices have all created a large optical fibre cable network and barely 25 per cent of their infrastructure is leveraged, and therefore under-utilised. If a proper sharing methodology is evolved, telecom penetration can be increased significantly using the spare bandwidth.

"Still the policy favours the incumbent or a large operator, thereby marginalising smaller players. This is nothing but oligopoly even in a country with huge potential. Nowhere does a representation on problem areas take 18 months to resolve. In a growing, dynamic market, such delays disturb the business rhythm and can ruin a company," he said.

Referring to the spectrum costs, Mr Maheshwari said that there are anomalies in the overall costs, by which a corporate user gets bandwidth at a much lower rate than an ISP. Such issues bring to light some glaring discrepancies in the policy approach. In fact, the entire spectrum costs need to be revisited, he added.

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