We are at least three years away from that magic figure of 1 billion: COAI

India, the fastest growing telecom market in the world, is at the threshold of achieving a total of 1 billion telecom connections. But issues such as power shortage and security related rules pose a challenge to increase telecom coverage. Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) Director-General Rajan S Mathews says that mobile broadband growth is necessary in the sovereign interest of the country, rather than consumer expectations. Edited excerpts:-

When do you think India will reach the 1-billion mark?

Now we have more than 920 million connections and in terms of unique subscribers, we are probably about 650 million, discounting multiple SIM and other users. There are many regions that are not covered such as the North East, Jammu & Kashmir and the Maoist belts in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. There the problems are security and power. I think we are at least three years away from that magical figure of 1 billion connections.

Will the complete rollout of 4G services bring in more users?

We continue to look at voice and data separately. Voice will continue to grow, while on data it’s a question of penetration again. Globally, data penetration is about 35 per cent and in some countries such as Japan, it’s as high as 50 per cent. In India, it’s somewhere between 7-12 per cent. So there is a significant opportunity.

While 3G was not successful in India, what are the chances of 4G services?

In the rest of the world, with advanced literacy and high penetration of telecom services, it took 3-3.5 years to start seeing an uptick in 3G services. When it comes to 4G, we are launching it along with everyone else in the world. Therefore, we should expect another 2-3 years before we see the hockey-stick curve.

Mobile Number Portability is to gain ground in India?

One issue is that people have multiple SIMs. So there is no need to churn. Across the world, 3-4 per cent of the total user base churn every month, while in India it’s less than one per cent. Relatively, customers in India are satisfied with the services.

Operators have cut freebies, tweaked tariffs and withdrew freebies to cut losses, but have left headline tariffs untouched.

The headline tariffs are at Re 1 per minute and call rates being at 43-45 paise, there is an opportunity to manage without changing the headline tariffs.

To get to headline, withdrawals of discount on the voice side is more than enough. The bigger issue is that the Government is taking 30 per cent of every rupee we earn through all kinds of levies.

Why do we need two industry bodies - COAI and AUSPI - to represent one sector?

At present there are no active discussions to merge the two entities.

We agree on 90 per cent of the issues, while the only areas we have differences are spectrum and interconnectivity.

Now with unified licensing, spectrum auction and others bringing in a level playing field, perhaps we should look at consolidation of associations.

Is the growth of the mobile broadband satisfactory?

Countries today are defining their place in the global environment based on their ability to conduct cyber warfare. If you fall behind in mobile broadband growth, you lose your sovereign standing among the nations, your competitiveness to do trade and to conduct cyber warfare will be compromised.