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The Department of Telecom (DoT) and officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation will meet within the next 10 days to discuss operational details of in-flight connectivity, recently cleared by the Telecom Commission (TC).
“The discussions on the operational model will entail questions like who will be investing in infrastructure and who will be providing the services. There is no standard model...we will have to see what is suitable in the Indian context,” Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, DoT, told reporters here.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Communication Ministry’s conference to highlight the achievement of the government in last four years, she said the meeting date will be finalised soon and telecom providers, airlines, and in-flight connectivity service providers will also attend the meeting. The TC, on May 1, had cleared a proposal for allowing wider in-flight connectivity that is now available in most of the developed markets, but there were some disagreements between committee of secretaries and sector regulator TRAI on permission of Indian satellites and Indian gateway.
While the committee of secretaries approves of only Indian satellites and Indian gateway, TRAI was of the view that mobile communication on-board aircraft (MCA) are global in nature and is mostly governed by bi-lateral mutual agreements.
Therefore, India should not allow the foreign aircraft ‘to provide the MCA services using their satellite and gateways over the Indian airspace,’ because the other countries will also not allow the Indian aircraft to provide MCA services while over-flying their jurisdictions then.
New telecom policy
Meanwhile, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said that the new Telecom Policy is expected to be declared by Cabinet by the end of next month. “I am hopeful of getting Cabinet approval on National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) by the end of July.”
The government had recently issued the NDCP, which aims to provide access to every household with download speed of 50 Mbps, attract investment of around ₹ 6.5 lakh crore in the sector and create 40-lakh new job opportunities within few years.
“Telecom sector has been a success story, and we will ensure that this story remains intact. We have taken steps...be it on interest rates or deferred spectrum payment. In future also, if required we will take such decisions,” the minister said when asked about the financial stress being faced by telecom operators.
Call drops
On call drops, he said that the two prime benchmarks for call drop measurement have indicated a sharp improvement in service quality.
“The TRAI report which monitors the call drop situation has shown an improvement in last 15 months. The Communications Ministry also has an IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) and reports indicate a marked improvement. The telecom footprint has doubled in the last four years, so may towers have come up, despite the difficulties,” Sinha said.
On the Department of Posts (DoP), Sinha said that it is waiting for approval of Reserve Bank of India to start 650 branches of India Post payments Bank which will be connected with all 1.5 lakh post office branches gradually and create India’s largest banking network.
He said his ministry was also working on creating a separate insurance company under DoP.
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