The new National Telecom Policy would unfold next year while the much hyped uniform call rates across India could become a reality in January 2006 where even a Delhi-Mumbai call will be treated as a local call. Or for that matter a call could be made anywhere in the country which would be like a local call.
The government is considering implementing uniform call rates across the country in order to bring down per minute STD call rates.
Meanwhile the new National Telecom Policy is likely to address issues relating to access, spectrum allocation, technology, telecom equipment manufacturing and others.
In the last couple of months global IT and telecom giants have announced their investment plans of more than $8 billion in the country over the next 3-5 years. These investments cover the entire gamut of IT services and telecom equipment manufacturing.
By 2006, the FDI in the sector is expected to double to $22 billion. About $9 billion in planned investment has been announced this year, including $3 billion by SemIndia and chipmaker AMD, $1.7 billion by Microsoft Corporation, more than $1 billion each by Intel Corp and Cisco Systems Inc.
The last three or four investments have come from the United States mainly from companies like Cisco, AMD, Intel and Microsoft.
Meanwhile, almost all global telecom equipment majors such as Ericsson Nortel Networks Corp, and Nokia have already marked their presence in the country.
Meanwhile, continuing cheer prevailed in the country's fast growing mobile segment with tariffs sliding by 37 per cent to touch Rs 1.20 per minute by the end of September 2005.
In the same period rates for fixed line local calls witnessed a 15 per cent drop to touch 85 paise in September 2005.
Meawnhile the gross subscriber base of the fixed and mobile services together reached 113.07 million for the quarter ended September, 2005 as against 104.22 million on June, 2005, registering an increase of around 8.49 per cent.
Mobile users also rose over 30 per cent at the end of September 2005, compared with September last year
The last quarter also saw the country's teledensity move into double figures to touch 10.36 for the quarter ending September 2005, compared with 9.61 in the previous quarter while the overall teledensity growth for the year was 28.03 per cent.
The user base is expected to soar as Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. apart from state owned BSNL are expanding their networks into untapped rural areas where more than two-thirds of the country's billion-plus population lives.
Also, falling prices of handsets, partly due to local manufacturing by players such as LG Electronics and even Motorola have also fuelled demand from potential mobile users.
Motorola launched its 'Made in India' handset, 'C 115' billed as a common man's mobile at a price tag of Rs 1,700, last month.
Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran had stated that the growth will have to shift to rural areas. China has a teledensity of 29 per cent way ahead of India.
Another event that has been chasing the telecom sector has been the merging of the two telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL. But the government has still to make a final move in that front and decisions on the merger front is still awaited.
With an average of over 2.5-million mobile phone subscribers added every month, India is currently one of the fastest-growing telecom markets in the world.
On another tangent, the department of telecom faced the ire of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, which has asked it to move fast on resolving the spectrum tangle.
Let GSM and CDMA co-exist, give both factions spectrum based on international norms and let CDMA have a go at the 1,900 MHz band, the Parliamentary Committee in its latest report said.
The committee asked DOT to create conditions for GSM and CDMA operators to roll out 3G at one time.
According to the report, DoT has been sitting on the telecom regulator Trai's spectrum recommendations for too long, and it has discussed the release of spectrum with the defence ministry since February, but without results.
''Even after 10 months, the department has not arrived at any final view on the requirement of Defence and the vacation of spectrum including IMT-2000 band,'' the report says. Decisions on spectrum need to be handled carefully, but ''such issues cannot be kept pending forever,'' the report said.
TRAI had earlier said that the 1,900 MHz band will not be easy to free from defence control, but the parliamentary report wants DoT to start work on a 'defence interest (spectrum) zone' soon.
This will free 1,900 Mhz, which CDMA operators can use with the existing 800 MHz. The GSM faction can also keep its 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands the report said.
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