DoT for campaign to allay radiation fears about telecom towers

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has asked its monitoring wing TERM to carry out a media campaign to allay "undue apprehensions" about possible health effects of radiation from telecom towers.

In a letter to Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cells, the DoT said the Gujarat High Court has directed, through a judgement, that necessary steps be taken regarding awareness of general public to mitigate their general fear and apprehension about radiation from towers.

TERM, which is made up of 34 Cells in India's 24 telecom circles and 10 large telecom districts, is responsible for vigilance, monitoring and security of the network.

"TERM units are requested to take necessary action to spread public awareness so as to allay undue apprehensions in respect of possible health effects from EMF radiations," the DoT wrote last month.

It cited the judgement which said the Court deemed it necessary to mention that the concerned authorities should, by way, of communication through TV, radio etc bring it to the notice of the people at large that there is no reason for them to fear the erection of the BTS.

The DoT said TERM, Ahmedabad has already taken various steps like coordinating workshop, interacting with print and electronic media etc.

The judgement of the Gujarat High Court came in response to a petition filed by Mukti Park Cooperative Society praying for removal of tower erected outside the premises of petitioners on the ground that it would cause health hazard due to radiations. The petition was rejected by the Court.

Earlier, a panel set up by the DoT had also said there is "no conclusive evidence" about the dangers of radiation from mobile towers.

The 13-member panel consisted government officials, IIT professors from Kharagpur, Kanpur and Roorkee, a medical consultant from AIIMS and scientists.

There have been fears among people that radiation from mobile towers causes cancer and has other effects on health. This led some people objecting to installation of mobile towers near their homes. This has created a hurdle for companies eyeing expansion in network coverage.

Mobile phones emit low levels of radio-frequency energy.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration website, the radio-frequency exposure that people experience from base stations is typically much lower than from cellphones because the antennas are mounted on towers or other building structures and are substantially away from public.

Source: ET

750,000km of cable to connect villages with broadband: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that 750,000km of cable is proposed to be laid over next three and a half years to provide broadband in every village of the country, the ministry said in a statement Sunday.

“This project aims at digital empowerment of people and will be a game changer,” Prasad, said at the first MyGov Samvaad programme in New Delhi on Saturday evening, interacting with contributors of ideas for the Digital India project.

MyGov is an Internet-based platform for citizen engagement launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 26.

The minister also felicitated 20 of the best contributors for their ideas and responses from out of over 40,000 responses, the statement added.

Prasad told the contributors that there is a need to sensitise people about the power of technology.

India now has about 300 million Internet users, which figure is crossing the number of Internet users in the US, that is second on this count after China, the minister added.

He pointed out that while in urban India mobile connectivity is 146 percent, it is only about 46 percent in rural areas.

Prasad said electronic manufacturing is also being promoted in the country in a big way.

Source: First Post

Trai recommendations on spectrum pricing likely by end of October

Telecom regulator Trai is likely to come out with recommendations on spectrum pricing for the next round of auction by the end of next month.

"The recommendations are likely to come by the end of October," a source in Trai said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in August had started the consultation process for the next round of auctions for spectrum held by mobile operators - Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and RCom - as some of their licences are set to expire in 2015-16.

Trai will recommend the reserve price of spectrum to be auctioned across 18 out of the 22-telecom service areas across the country for 900 Mhz and 1800 Mhz bands, used for providing mobile services based on GSM technology standard.

The Authority has recently conducted an open house discussion with industry players in order to get their views on reserve price, quantum of spectrum and other issues related to auction.

In December 2015, 4 licences of Bharti Airtel, 7 each of Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom and Vodafone will complete their 20-year term and would require renewal.

The companies can renew their licences by paying a fixed fee but for continuing mobile and other wireless services they will need to buy spectrum afresh through auction at market determined rates. By April 2016, two more permits of Bharti and Idea will come up for renewal.

As per Trai, 184 Mhz of spectrum in 900 MHz band and 104 MHz in 1800 Mhz band can be put up for the auction.

The government, in its Budget Estimates for the current financial year, 2014-15, has projected minimum revenue of Rs 9,355 crore from auction of 800 Mhz as well as the 900 Mhz and 1800 Mhz bands.

Source: ET

Private telcos can play big role in Digital India retail rollout: Ravi Shankar Prasad

The telecom regulator has rued India's dismal broadband penetration and questioned the telecom department's decision to only involve state-owned telecom companies to implement the Rs 21,000 crore national optic fibre network (NOFN) project that is already running three years behind schedule.

In a consultation paper titled 'Delivering Broadband Quickly', unveiled Wednesday, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also invited industry feedback on a relevant "timeframe for auctioning spectrum in the 700 MHz band," to offer the most efficient airwaves to telcos for boosting India's poor broadband penetration.

It has also invited suggestions on awarding engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) contracts to private telecom operators through the international competitive bidding route to speed up NOFN, which will be the core broadband backbone for delivering high-speed internet and government services to the common man under the Centre's Rs 1.13 lakh-crore Digital India drive.

"Are PSUs ideal choices for implementing the NOFN project, and is it not possible to piggyback on existing private sector access networks to minimize costs in reaching remote rural locations,?" asked Trai in its consultation paper.

The telecom department has mandated state-run Bharat Broadband Networks to implement the NOFN venture as the principal bandwidth supplier, and asked state-run firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Power Grid Corp and RailTel to handle the countrywide cable laying, trenching and ducting work.

In an interview to ET in August, Trai Chairman Rahul Khullar had doubted if the government will be able to meet the 2019 timeline to implement the Digital India initiative, given the delays in the NOFN project, and had called upon the centre to evaluate involving private sector telecom players to speed it up.

The telecom regulator's scathing criticism of India's broadband act also come barely 24 hours after telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad deplored the tardy progress of the NOFN project, which he said was contributing to "India's broadband deficit".

To suggestions in a late August ET interview that the private sector may be roped in for the NOFN project to speed it up, Prasad had said the government will continue to implement it through state-run public sector units.

Apart from inviting suggestions on reducing broadband infrastructure development costs, Trai has also sought views on involving the private sector to reduce high-speed internet delivery costs. It has also sought feedback on the quantum of spectrum required to achieve national broadband penetration targets, identifying relevant frequency bands and ways to encourage government agencies to surrender their idle spectrum.

It has also elicited views on potential policy changes needed to ramp up broadband penetration by leveraging India's significant cable TV network. In this case, Trai's poser echoes DoT's recent plans to revisit a proposal of India's broadband policy of 2004, which had suggested using the country's cable TV infrastructure as a franchisee network of internet service providers for delivering broadband.

The DoT is known to be mulling a relook at existing internet service provider (ISP) licence conditions and a separate ISP permit only for cable TV broadband, so that existing cable TV infrastructure can be leveraged efficiently.

The Trai consultation paper also wonders why "wifi hotspots" haven't seen decent traction in all these years, and elicits views on ways to evolve a robust ecosystem for fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks.

Issues raised by Trai are likely to mirror some of the highlights of the new BJP-led government's broadband policy that likens broadband connectivity to a fundamental right like education and health. The new broadband policy is likely to also explore ways to attract large investment from potential developers of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks.

The broadband focus also stems from India's modest broadband subscriber base of 70.81 milllion as on July 2014, comprising 15.04 million wireline broadband customers and 55.77 million mobile broadband users, as per Trai data. This pales in comparison with the nearly 800 million mobile phone subscribers as on July end.

While the new policy will not tinker with NTP 2012 broadband penetration target of 175 million customers by 2015, it has advanced the 2020 target date for 600 million broadband customers by a year to 2019, according to a recent DoT note seen by ET.

Source: ET

No undue advantage given to Reliance Jio: DoT

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has repeated the government has not done anything wrong in allowing Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm to transfer its internet service provider (ISP) licence to a unified licence (UL), or in the auction of the broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum in 2010, as alleged in a draft report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG).

DoT and the company have not done anything that breached the guidelines mentioned in the notice inviting applications (NIA) for the auction of the BWA spectrum in 2010, it stated in a reply to CAG’s draft audit report.

CAG has said DoT had failed to recognise “telltale signs of rigging” in the 2010 auctions and had enabled an unknown company, Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (IBSPL), to acquire pan-India broadband spectrum by paying 5,000 times its net worth of Rs 2.5 crore.

According to the report, IBSPL had made an earnest money deposit of Rs 252.5 crore and won 20 Mhz of pan-India BWA spectrum. It had through the “covert and overt assistance of third party or private bank” bid for Rs 12,847.77 crore and sold the company to a Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) entity on the day of completion of the auction. CAG accused IBSPL and RIL, the parent of Jio, of conspiracy, and has asked for a probe into the whole matter. It has asked DoT to cancel the broadband spectrum the company was allotted after the 2010 auctions, and to give “exemplary punishment” on the colluding firms.

According to the report, DoT had favoured Jio by allowing it to convert its ISP permit, which would enable the firm to offer voice services, for Rs 1,658 crore, a price telcos paid in 2001 when the sector was in its infancy and a price struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012.

“Hence, Reliance Jio Infocomm appeared to have been accorded an undue advantage of Rs 22,848 crore,” the draft report noted.

DoT, in its reply to CAG, has said the government has not only the sovereign right to take policy decision but is also duty-bound to take necessary steps to achieve policy objectives. The decisions were of similar policy nature to fulfil the larger policy objectives in the interest of the economy, it added.

DoT said the policy decisions were timely and in fulfilment of mandate given by the Cabinet and taken with the approval of the then telecom minister. The observations of the audit, in effect, challenge the decision-making powers of various organs of the government and the authority vested under the rules of business with the telecom minister, added DoT.

It also seeks to substitute the wisdom and the decisions of the decision-making authorities of relevant time with that of another alternative approach suggested in the report which need not have been the best approach, DoT noted, asking CAG to delete the paras in the draft report. DoT, in its reply, has explained that the rules for 3G and BWA spectrum before a 2010 auction did not restrict BWA winners from providing voice telephony.

“IBSPL complied with all the required documents and the spectrum was being sold through a competitive bidding, so there were no restrictions on sale of equity,” said a DoT official seeking anonymity.

Source: BS

Mobile tariffs to pinch you hard as Trai may raise call rates by 8-9%

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman Rahul Khullar sees mobile call rates rising by 8-9% over the year as phone companies weed out freebies.

He also said in an interview with ET that the government should hasten the opening up of spectrum for high-speed access and that the new M&A norms were too stringent and would inhibit much-needed consolidation in telecom.

Khullar said though headline tariffs were currently at Rs 1.2 per minute, the net revenue earned by the industry — or realisation rates — were as low as 44-45 paise. "So, what you should be ready to see is some marginal rise in the effective call rates. You won't really feel the pinch of the tariff hike because what operators are really doing is clawing back the freebies," Khullar said.

This means subscribers could find free SMSes and talktime offered by operators steadily declining.

Khullar, however, warned that any move to increase headline tariffs won't go down too well. "What we don't expect is a rise in the headline tariffs. In case there is a rise in the headline tariffs, the authority will surely look into the matter and, depending upon the case, might intervene," the chairman said. The regulator has a stated policy of 'forbearance' on tariffs.

Referring to the quarterly results of Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular, Khullar said there were ample signs that growth was returning to the sector but warned that to keep the momentum going, the government should soon put in place a clear pro-industry policy on the most critical issues of spectrum sharing, trading, auction and overall consolidation.

Khullar urged the telecom department to move faster on making more spectrum available.

He said the government's inability to increase the availability of airwaves couldn't be explained, especially on 3G spectrum. "Four years have lapsed from the time of 3G auctions, no one could get it across the country in 2010 auctions owing to shortage of airwaves and the government further also proscribed people from sharing it," he said.

Khullar said availability of airwaves was critical for the industry.

"The next big concern for the industry is scarcity of spectrum, fragmented nature and overall availability of spectrum, leave aside problems of contiguity which are huge, particularly in 800, 900 and 1800 (Mhz). So DoT should notify the spectrum trading and sharing guidelines and start the market-driven process for consolidation. While it may result in a shakeout in the industry, whatever little spectrum is available, fragmentations will end.

If the government can't release any more 3G spectrum, then DoT must find a way out through consultation and dialogue with the industry, Khullar said.

At least 2100 Mhz should be put up on auction immediately and if you can't then devise rules permitting sharing of 3G spectrum and charge them for it," he said. In such a scenario, the government must allow the operators to share whatever airwaves they have and pay a flat charge to the government, he said.

He indicated that getting DoT to change its way of thinking has taken some effort.

"When I joined here two years ago, all this was a taboo, sharing, trading etc. It has taken huge effort to push the department in the direction of these changes."

The Trai chairman allowed that various considerations had complicated matters for DoT in the past two years or so. "Now there is a new telecom secretary. To be fair to them, they need to be given some time."

Operators are unhappy with telecom department's new mergers and acquisitions rules. The cap of 50% on the market share of the combined entity and the Cabinet decision that a buyer must pay a market price for spectrum bought if it was not purchased by the seller through auctions will discourage consolidation, critics have said.

Saying that the cap could certainly be eased, Khullar said, "This bug of increasing competition which first led to 12-14 operators in a circle and now has led to this situation. All over the world there are about threefour operators. In US, AT&T and Verizon and even in Germany there are basically two main operators." The cap currently prohibits any of the three large operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular from consolidating.

On operators being asked to pay market price, Khullar said the government needed to incentivise exit and entry from the market. "If the cost of consolidation is letting an operator accumulate a premium on spectrum, it might be a small cost to pay for consolidation," he said, adding that he was not making a case for the entire windfall gain to accumulate to operators. "But suppose an operator can buy it at 80% of the market price, then there is still some incentive for both the operators to enter into the deal."

The regulator recently issued its recommendations on sharing of airwaves, which though more liberal than those of the telecom department, still fell short of industry expectations. "Only certain things are within my purview," Khullar said. "DoT as licensor has stipulated ceilings on spectrum holding of 25% and 50% and as a regulator I can't change these."

Trai said in its recommendations that while sharing airwaves only half of each operator's holding must be counted while calculating the respective caps. Explaining how he had to balance various interests, including the stated public policy, Khullar said, "If I had relaxed the caps then all the small players with 5%, 10% market share would say that this was done to ensure the GSM lobby drives all competition out."

Interestingly, while the regulator did not permit inter-band sharing of airwaves, the recommendations categorically said the regulator reserves the right to revisit this issue of permitting inter-band sharing in the future. Industry experts said the issue will need to be revisited once the regulator begins to work on the mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) policy.

"The problem in permitting interband sharing is that this runs counter to the stated government policy on intra-circle roaming arrangements. Reliance Communications, Aircel and in some cases even one of the top three operators (Airtel, Vodafone, Idea) is affected by this policy," he added.

Source: ET

DoT to dial DeiTY to prepare cloud roadmap for government

The telecom department will shortly dial the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeiTY), and not the sector regulator, to formulate a cloud services deployment roadmap for all government organisations.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had initially mandated the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to send recommendations for migrating computing and data storage functions of government organisations to the cloud platform, but is now likely to approach DeiTY, according to an internal DoT note seen by ET. The electronics and IT department is already involved in running cloud services applications with the Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu governments.

The move comes at a time when companies are swiftly migrating core enterprise applications, sales & distribution, financial accounting functions and CRM systems to the cloud platform, by renting server space instead of using their own to unlock efficiencies in processing and data storage, and in turn, reduce costs.

"All government departments are being encouraged to adopt the cloud platform for their e-governance projects initially as part of its MeghRaj, or GI Cloud, initiative," a senior DeiTY official said. The objective, he said, is to step up IT adoption in government and enable it to partner with private technology players to develop India as a global hub for delivering cloud solutions.

DeiTY is also developing a national data centre that will be a repository of e-governance apps.

DeiTY's endeavour to migrate the functions to the cloud platform is also aimed at leveraging cloud computing to deliver affordable e-services, accessed over the Internet. Such e-services could relate to public distribution system and land records and e-health to e-education, although DeiTY has yet to notify the details.

"Implementation of strategies for cloud services in government organisations may not be included in Trai's final recommendations on introduction of cloud-based services in India since the matter is being dealt by DeiTY," the note said. DoT is slated to send an official communication to Trai in this matter.

Indications are that DieTY will come up with recommendations to build secure state-owned data centres, a key element of cloud computing infrastructure. It also likely to suggest ways to overcome data security challenges thrown up by dismal power infrastructure.

Research firm Gartner in a recent forecast predicted that some $4.2 billion would be spent on cloud services in India over the next five years. This is since small enterprises, especially those which are keen on renting computing services rather than directly buying and owning it, would opt for the cloud platform.

Source: ET

Department of Telecommunications may use TRAI's data to reach uncovered areas

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will shortly ask the sector regulator to determine which areas remain outside mobile coverage ahead of the next spectrum auction.

It's likely to use the data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to design the next airwaves sale more effectively, especially with regard to rural rollout obligations for spectrum winners, a top official aware of the matter told ET.

DoT plans to use Trai's inputs to measure India's "unique mobile subscriber" penetration and also review the effectiveness of existing telco rollout obligations. It is keen to quantify unique subscribers as the "number of mobile connections" can be a misleading indicator of penetration since a subscriber can have multiple SIM cards.

Moves to address the issue could also mean mobile service providers having to step up investment, which would add to the pressure on finances at companies already burdened by high spectrum costs and having to keep tariffs low because of competition.

Trai's assessment of gaps in coverage will exclude the northeastern circles, where it has already concluded that some 9,000 villages have no mobile connectivity. The exercise comes at a time when sections within DoT have voiced concern about India's "very modest 40% rural tele-density levels".

The National Telecom Policy 2012 seeks to increase India's 40% rural tele-density levels to 70% by 2017 and 100% by 2020. Accordingly, the possibility of telcos being asked to meet 80-100% of their rural tele-density targets within defined timelines as part of their contractual obligations is not being ruled out.

Trai's inputs may prove handy in designing the next round of spectrum auctions, said Mahesh Uppal, director of Com First (India) — a consultancy dealing in telecom regulatory affairs.

"Accurate and robust data will be invaluable to estimate India's rural mobile coverage. It can also be useful for designing future auctions as it will help specify realistic rollout obligations for telcos that win spectrum through those auctions," he said.

DoT is learnt to have internally estimated that there are nearly "40,000 uncovered villages" across India (excluding those in the Northeast) and the cost of provisioning 2G coverage in these regions would be upwards of Rs 11,000 crore, a departmental official said.

Source: ET

Trai open to spectrum leasing, says Khullar

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has not shut the door on spectrum leasing and is open to allowing it. However, it first wants to see how spectrum trading and sharing, for which guidelines have been issued but not yet approved by the government, is implemented and the experience arising out of them. Only then would the matter of spectrum leasing be taken up.

In an interview with FE, Trai chairman Rahul Khullar said, “I have not closed the door on spectrum leasing. But first let’s see how spectrum trading and sharing take off. Let the government first approve them so that we can see how they take off. Once the experience of their implementation and roll out is there, we would certainly look at spectrum leasing also.”
The guidelines for spectrum sharing was unveiled by Trai on Monday while those for trading were released in January. While it is still early for the department of telecommunications to decide on sharing, it has dilly-dallied on taking a decision on spectrum trading thus far. Under spectrum trading, outright transfer of spectrum is allowed, which means that the ownership of the usage right is transferred to the buyer. Once implemented, if any operator feels it has spectrum it cannot utilise properly, it can sell it to another operator after paying a marginal charge to the government. Under sharing, Trai has allowed two operators to pool together their spectrum to create greater efficiency.

However, operators feel that leasing, which has not been recommended by Trai till now, would be the best option to ease the spectrum crunch they face. Under it, the ownership would vest with the operator to whom it has been assigned but if its utilisation rate is poor, it can lease it to another operator on rental charges and take it back once it finds a need for it. This way operators whose active subscriber base is low — say 50-60% — can lease the airwaves to bigger operators with over 90% utilisation and earn revenues. It would be a win-win situation for both.

Khullar also said that operators who are upset that inter-band spectrum sharing has not been allowed — this means that operators can only share spectrum in a particular band like 800 or 1800 MHz — should wait for some more months by when the regulator would come out with the guidelines for MVNO operations.
“I could not have allowed inter-band sharing at this point of time as it would have meant allowing mobile virtual network operators, which is not allowed under the telecom policy. But a couple of months down the line we would issue recommendations on MVNO and then the matter of inter-band sharing would get addressed,” Khullar said.
MVNOs are not licensed operators but buy bulk airtime from licensed players and retail them to the consumers.

Khullar said that the caps on spectrum holding on operators could not be lifted in case of sharing or trading because the regulator cannot breach policy guidelines. However, for the purposes of calculation he has relaxed it in the case of sharing. The cap lays down that operators cannot have more than 25% of total spectrum assigned in a circle or 50% in a given band. However, Trai has said that in case operators share, only 50% of shared spectrum would be counted as additional.
On the 0.5% additional spectrum usage charge on shared spectrum, Khullar said, “I wanted to put in place a clear road map on SUC. Suggesting no additional SUC would not have been acceptable to the government and it could have levied a higher charge as was done in an earlier proposal.”
Similarly, the Trai chairman said that he did not allow intra-circle roaming for 3G services since the government has taken a policy decision for not allowing any such pacts.

Source: FE

Spectrum norms to ward off CAG terror

Trai's guidelines on spectrum-sharing mark an improvement on the current state of affairs but fall far short of what is desirable. 

They impose all kinds of arbitrary restrictions that limit utilisation of spectrum far below what technology and commercial conduct permit. This is unfortunate. 

India started off by offering operators tiny slivers of spectrum that did not allow optimal network design. Operators have had to carry out excessive investment to service their growing customer base because of this scarcity of the raw material of telecom. Yet, thanks to the policy of making spectrum available with minimal upfront costs, till the auctions started, and intense competition among a large number of licensees, consumers got some of the cheapest tariffs in the world. 

The common good lies in regulation and licensing terms encouraging, not blocking, evolution of services to the latest technology platforms and business models that incorporate available technological possibilities. It is against this requirement that we have to measure the Trai regulations and government policy. And the latest sharing guidelines fall far short. Why not allow sharing among more than two operators? Why insist that an operator would not be able to share spectrum in a band that it did not possess prior to sharing? Why limit the kind of services that any operator can provide using shared spectrum? After all, the government only needs to ensure that it does not lose any revenue as a result of companies pooling their spectrum resources. 

What Trai and the department of telecom are doing is, in everyday parlance, covering their backside. Maximising the common good is far from their topmost objective. They want to guard against being accused of causing notional revenue loss. It's time they stopped fearing CAG ghosts

Source: ET

DoT proposes rebate in licence fee for mobile operators running towers on green energy

A telecom department (DoT) panel has recommended graded licence fee rebates of 1%, 2% and 3% for mobile operators who run 20%, 35% and 50% of their towers on green energy, according to an internal note seen by ET. 

If approved, the rebates will become effective "in the financial year subsequent to the year" of a telco meeting these "green tower conversion" targets. At present, telcos shell out 8% of their annual revenue as licence fee. 

The recommendation is among a slew of incentives that the government is considering to encourage telcos and tower firms to meet DoT's stiff go-green targets. 

The DoT panel has been mulling performance-based incentives to telecom companies that deploy renewable energy technology (RET) or 'green' solutions in running their towers, and in turn, reduce diesel consumption. More so, since it has suggested that all tower installations built post-2013-14 must ensure that the "back-up energy source to grid power is based on an RET solution and not diesel. 

The objective is to encourage green energy deployment in telecom tower installations, which currently run largely on diesel in absence of grid support. A graded licence fee rebate mechanism has been suggested to help cross-subsidise telco investments since the initial cost of harnessing green energy is huge. 

The DoT panel has also advocated "uninterrupted power consumer" status for telcos to avail of the benefits of uniform preferential tariffs, especially since telecommunications is a critical infrastructure sector contributing to economic growth. 

At recent meetings, telcos have told DoT that they can ill afford the huge expenses needed to set up capacity to generate alternate sources of energy such as solar, fuel cells or wind in order to meet the government's green targets unveiled over two years ago. 

DoT's green policy requires telecom companies to migrate 50% of all mobile towers in rural areas and 20% in urban areas to hybrid power by 2015. Hybrid power has been defined as a mix of grid supplies and renewable energy based on solar, wind, biomass or fuel cells. 

The target will get more stringent by 2020, when operators will need to run 75% of cell towers in rural and 33% in urban zones on hybrid supplies.

Source: ET

Telecom Industry Looking For More Spectrum: COAI

The telecom industry is hopeful the government would release more spectrum for better growth of voice and data services in the country, industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI)'s newly-elected chairman Marten Pieters said Monday.

Pieters, the Vodafone India CEO and MD, said the industry is looking forward for more spectrum as in India, the spectrum holding by the telecom service providers is really low compared to many other nations.

"In some countries the average spectrum holding is 50 to 100 Mhz, whereas in India it is 30 MHz on an average. In India we are far away from that. We need more spectrum," Pieters said in his address after being elected to head COAI, which represents six of the largest mobile service operators of the country, for 2014-15.

"We recommend early release of 2,100 MHz bands for better growth of data services in the country," he added.

Regarding release of 700 MHz, which will help in 4G LTE roll out in the country, he said: "Any spectrum is welcome. But development of handsets will take some time. It is better that the government makes more 3G spectrum available because that is where the market is."

Bharti Airtel's CEO and MD (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal has been elected as the vice chairman of COAI, . 

Regarding the future of the telecom industry, Pieters said it will depend on a few key aspects like reasonable pricing of spectrum, availability and affordability of smartphones, power and tower availability and customer attrition depending on tariffs.

About the electric and magnetic field (EMF) radiation and its side effects, he said the industry stakeholders would like equal government participation to reassure people that the radiation does not have any bad effects on health.

On the new government and the industry expectations, Pieters said the industry will forward to "development oriented policy regime" from the new government.

Source: New Indian Express

Telecom Dept Working on Policy to Treat Broadband as Basic Need

The Telecom Department is expected to finalise a National Broadband Policy within 100 days that would treat high-speed Internet access a basic right like education and health. “A new broadband policy is being prepared and will be finalised within 100 days,“ an official source said. Under the new policy the government has plans to include broadband among basic necessities like education and health and work towards new legislation of `Right to Broadband', sources said.

 They said it is expected to look at ways of increasing broadband penetration as well as convergence of various technologies and platforms like cable TV , optical fibre, wireless connection through spectrum, VSAT and satellite. At present there are different departments that govern various technologies. For instance, Cable TV comes under the I&B Ministry and Satellite related issues are majorly governed by the Department of Space

Source: TOI

Telecom manufacturing high on Prasad’s agenda

Policies that will boost telecom and electronics manufacturing in India are high on Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s first 100 days’ agenda.

While Kapil Sibal, who held the portfolio under the UPA dispensation, had also taken this as one of the key initiatives, proposals such as the preferential manufacturing access did not take off due to differences within the Government on implementing it.

According to top Government functionaries, Prasad now wants to take a fresh look at the issue and has asked the industry to come up with ideas on how local manufacturing can be made a reality. “The Minister met multinational mobile phone companies recently and asked them to give a list of things which the new Government can do to encourage them to set up factories in India,” the Government official told Business Line.

The previous Government had tried to bring in a number of policies to attract investments in the manufacturing sector. For example, it had announced incentive schemes for players for setting up semiconductor fabrication units.

However, these initiatives did not attract many new investors. In fact, decisions such as the tax notice on Nokia acted as a dampener. Nokia had to shift most of its manufacturing from the Sriperumbudur factory near Chennai to locations in other countries, including Vietnam.

When contacted, a Nokia spokesperson confirmed the meeting with Prasad. “Nokia confirms that it has started to meet high-level ministers of the new government. We welcome the opportunity to engage with the new government on matters important to the industry. We remain committed to getting the asset freeze on the Chennai facility lifted and to find an amicable resolution to the current tax disputes.”

The big worry for the Government is that India is a net importer of electronic products, which impacts the foreign exchange situation.

China factor

According to the Indian Cellular Association, imports of mobile phones are estimated to increase by whopping 61 per cent in 2014 to ₹56,300 crore compared with ₹34,950 crore in 2013. Total domestic production would have shrunk by nearly 15 per cent, at a time when the overall market is set to grow by 31.5 per cent. This, despite the fact that manufacturing in India is cheaper compared with China. Labour costs here are half the level of Shenzhen, the global hub of mobile manufacturing. But, China has rolled out the red carpet by giving huge tax breaks backed by investment friendly policies.

The key challenge for Prasad to counter China’s superiority in the region would be to get support from other Ministries such as Finance to give tax incentives and infrastructure support to make India an attractive destination.

Source: HBL

Government planning incentives for local telecom gearmakers

The government plans to offer a slew of incentives to local telecom gearmakers, including an interest-free deferred excise duty payout option over a 7-year span, export sops, 10-year tax holidays and a Rs 1,000-crore telecom innovation fund. The move aims at lending an impetus to domestic telecom manufacturing and reducing dependence on imported gear.

The 10-year tax holidays are proposed for domestic telecom product companies with units in special economic zones (SEZs), while the 10 per cent export incentives have been suggested to encourage domestic producers to manufacture security sensitive telecom products that will have to be locally sourced for government-funded telecom projects under the preferential market access (PMA) policy, according to an internal government presentation seen by ET.

The Rs 1,000-crore telecom innovation fund, which may progressively be scaled up to Rs 5,000 crore, is in the works to provide seed capital to local telecom start-ups. The fund is proposed to be registered under the Securities and Exchange Board of India's Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) regulations.

The telecom department is likely urge a trustee company, established under the Indian Trust Act of 1882, to operate the fund, the note shows. The government also plans to "delicence small chunks of spectrum" for eligible local telecom gear makers with the requisite IPRs to test and develop homegrown technologies. It is also likely to explore ways to reduce "high financing costs" and remove glitches in the "inverted duty structure on Information Technology Agreement (ITA) products triggered by dual use raw materials and components".

The latest overtures come amid expectations that the government will address the inverted duty structure jinx, under which finished goods are taxed at lower rates than the raw material. In fact, it is likely to do so in the next budget to boost manufacturing. The plan to ring in new incentives is aimed to complement the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's target of local telecom gear makers meeting 80 per cent of India's telecom demand by 2020.

"A majority of network infrastructure equipment is imported" and "India is merely a screwdriver assembly operation for MNCs since very little value addition happens locally and the IPRs (intellectual property rights) reside with foreign companies," concedes the government in the internal presentation cited above.

The emphasis on developing a robust local telecom manufacturing ecosystem is also aimed at reining in "huge forex outflows and GDP losses" triggered by India's huge import dependence.

For instance, in 2012-13, India imported Rs 27,223 crore of telecom equipment (including handsets, components and telecom cables), according to data collated by the telecom department. DoT numbers further reveal that domestic telecom gear makers met merely 3 per cent of India's aggregate telecom demand of Rs 54,765 crore in 2009-10.

Source: TOI