The Hindu Business Line : Cellular cos against mandatory sharing

Cellular service providers have opposed a proposal from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to make infrastructure-sharing mandatory as part of the licence agreement. Mobile operators have also said that India was not ready for the introduction of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) who buys airtime from operators and then resells it to users.

consultation paper

TRAI had floated a consultation paper seeking the industry's views on whether sharing of infrastructure should be made mandatory since most operators were currently doing it on an ad-hoc basis. TRAI had said that sharing infrastructure would not only reduce costs but also enable operators to roll out network in order to meet Government's teledensity targets.

In its response, the Cellular Operators Association of India said, "There is a need to encourage and promote infrastructure-sharing through policy intervention and through suitable financial and other incentives. However, infrastructure-sharing should not be mandated."

policy intervention

The Association of Unified Service Providers of India said, "We feel there is no necessity of mandating or any policy intervention with respect to the infrastructure in urban areas. However, in rural areas there would be a need for mandating. In view of the restrictive features of infrastructure sharing, it should be left to the operators to work out among themselves the arrangements for sharing the passive infrastructure."

State-owned BSNL said, "As far as policy intervention for the passive infrastructure sharing is concerned, it is already in place and almost every operator has taken it in a positive way. A policy paper, which defines and explains the possibility of sharing and the resulting win-win situation for all namely operators, consumers, industry and Government should be brought in. There is no need to mandate the passive infrastructure sharing but it should be promoted."

Reliance Communications, on the other hand, has supported the TRAI move. "The authority has correctly noted that mutual sharing of infrastructure is not getting popular. Hence we feel that passive infrastructure sharing should be mandated at least for three service providers. However, the commercial arrangements for sharing may be left to mutual agreements between the service providers."

On the issue of MVNO, cellular operators said while this should be dealt with separately, "it is also very pertinent to keep in mind that competition in mobile segment in India is already very intense. In view of constantly reducing tariffs, falling ARPUS and low margins, we feel that the concept of MVNO will not be suitable for Indian telecom market," COAI said.

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