The Hindu Business Line : Tata Tele hopeful of more licences

Tata Teleservices is hopeful of getting licences soon to begin commercial operations in Jammu and Kashmir, the North-East and Assam, Mr Mukund Govind Rajan, Director, Tata Teleservices, said. Talking to presspersons on the sidelines of the X National Seminar -Communiqué '06, organised by the Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management (SITM), Mr Rajan, who is also the President, Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, said that it had applied for licences early this year.

He pointed that this was the fourth extension that the Government had sought for, to clarify issues relating to Press Note 5. He said it was also the ambiguity in foreign direct investment that was delaying the process.

Several challenges

Mr Rajan said that the telecom industry faced several challenges and the major one was the availability of the raw material — spectrum — without which wireless communication was impossible. He pointed out that spectrum should be equally allocated to all service providers and the service providers must be free to adopt whichever technology to deliver whatever service they please.

He said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had, in its recommendations released last week, taken an important step in this direction.

Support innovation

He said that technology development always outpaced developments in policy and regulation. Rather than penalising those in the forefront of innovation, the licensor and regulator need to be supportive of innovation and a fair, stable and predictable policy regime and regulation was essential.

Mr Rajan said it would also be worthwhile to have a Government-led public-private partnership to influence the shaping of the global standards in telecom technologies and also drive the home-grown technology standards in international bodies such as TIA, 3GPP2.

He noted that there was also a proposal, doing the rounds in the Government, advocating the creation of two world-class research and development centres in the PPP mode. One centre, which could be funded by the Government, could develop products and applications for the rural areas. The other centre could collaborate with the various international standard-setting bodies to influence global standards suited to the Indian telecom industry and to drive home-grown technology standards.

Mr Rajan said that the Indian telecom sector was one of the most highly taxed sectors in the world and when combined with the lowest tariffs, the service providers were left with thin margins. A calculation by the regulator showed that Indian taxes and levies ranged between 19-28 per cent of revenues, which was higher than the other emerging markets such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China, where it ranged from a low to 12.5 per cent. He said it was imperative that the levies be reduced, particularly with a view to increasing the penetration in low tele-density areas, especially the rural areas.

Neutral Stand

"As an authority, we do not work or regulate to make winners and losers. We are there to facilitate the growth of telecom segment. I strongly refute any insinuation that the Authority has favoured A or B technology. The Authority has established by its recommendations that it pursues technologically neutral stand," Mr Nripendra Misra, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), said here. This was in response to a query that TRAI has favoured the CDMA technology thereby making the GSM players unhappy. He also stated that the ball is now in the court of the DoT and there is no scope for TRAI to revisit its recommendations unless it is technologically wrong.

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