More on Spectrum madness in Indian Telecom

More on Spectrum madness in Indian Telecom

“The best things in life are for free”. For the telecom operators, it is the spectrum more than anything else. If it is being offered on a platter, that is even better. TRAI kicked up a row where it offered the spectrum for 3G services for free; ostensibly to “help the consumers in terms of cheaper services”. I am not enthusiastic about the 3G Services- in my opinion, they would add to nothing, except the costs.

If providing the Internet services is concerned, there is no substitute for Wireline access. In any case, the projected “millions” may never materialize- are they expecting out of thin air? Reliance and Tata’s in any case got an unfair advantage to roll out their services; though in real terms, given the hefty penalties that Reliance had to pay really doesn’t signifies any advantage that they might have had prior to the launch of their services.

In all the madness that Indian Telecom is, there seems to be no clear winners.

In what can be seen as a proactive step from Ministry of Telecommunications, in a terse statement, Maran says, “TRAI has exceeded its mandate”. I fail to understand as to how this has been done. It was just the “recommendations” and not the final order. Recommendations are just a bunch of government files that are known to rot in some smelly corner. In no way they are implemented. Oh well, they did accept the definition of broadband as 256kbps- that did not hurt anyone much.

There is no last word on this. I have deliberately avoided the details of the “controversy”. In all, it seems that courts are going to define the contours of the next telecom policy. Clearly, the “circus” has gone off track and the “viewers” are left to suffer.

This post was submitted by Dr. Abhishek Puri on the Broadband Blog on Techwhack.