Some of the things the former Telecom Minister, Mr. A. Raja, has said are true. The things he says he did on his own are not.

The sharp break from trend that he is claiming credit for in fact occurred before his time, in 2006-07.

Of course, the Central Statistical Office's figures on private final consumption expenditure relate to postal, telephone and telegraph services as a group; a much broader category than mobile telephony alone.

But the dramatic increase in the availability of landlines, and the sharp jump in broadband services, had already taken place by the first five or six years of this century.

After that, while broadband penetration continues to increase, it is mobile telephony that has been the major game changer.

It is this sector that has largely been driving recent changes, albeit in prices and real consumption, rather than revenues.

From 2006-07, prices for communication services as a group began falling at a compound rate of almost 10 per cent per year, as against the earlier 4 per cent, while real private final consumption expenditure speeded up another 10 per cent, to a compound rate of 34 per cent per annum.

To appreciate the enormity of this achievement, one must acknowledge that by 2006-07 most of the felt needs had been met, most of the easy money had been made.

And, after this time, high rates of growth could no longer be achieved on account of a low base.

The revenue figures posted by TRAI on its Web site fail to suggest that such a profound change has taken place.

But that is only because plummeting prices have concealed real changes from view. The world around us is visibly changed.

What has happened is a paradigm shift, as telecom companies reached out beyond traditional uses and traditional users, driven by the desire of not only latecomers such as Uninor and DoCoMo, but also early birds such as Idea, to enlarge the market and gain market share, and attempts by Airtel and Vodafone to hold on to what they had.

How 3G will pan out, how long it will take to break even, remains to be seen.

For the present, the one thing that has not changed is revenue growth (i.e nominal consumption expenditure).

Given the small difference in the rate of growth of revenue before and after 2006-07, profits for the industry as a whole must have shrunk a great deal, squeezed between rising costs and falling prices.

But that's another story.

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