India to soon have a new telecom policy?

India to soon have a new telecom policy?

The Indian government has proposed that they would be coming out with a new comprehensive national telecom policy in the coming days. It is expected to cover a lot of areas like access, spectrum allocation, technology, telecom equipment manufacturing, research and development, deregulation, value added service and quality of service in the telecom sector.

The government has invited various major stakeholders for inputs in the preparation of the draft policy. Not many details have been revealed though. Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Shakeel Ahmed was talking to the Lok Sabha newspaper when he revealed this information.

He also said that the government would be focusing on improvement in the rural telephony sector in this policy and has aimed to reach a telecom density in such areas to four percent by 2010 — from 1.74 percent at present. The target is to also achieve a uniform telecom tariff across the country. Their has been no time frame set to achieve this target.

Hopefully, they would do something about the broadband scenario in India as well. The way the companies are operating in India… it feels like a decade will pass before we get access to mbit capable broadband lines for affordable prices in India.