Draft National Telecom Policy - 2011

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DRAFT NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY - 2011​

Communications minister Kapil Sibal unveiled the draft National Telecoms Policy 2011 today, containing new rules for the sector.

The revised rules, which will replace the existing framework that has been in place since 1999, aims to make the country's telecommunications sector more transparent, relax merger and acquisition norms to encourage consolidation and also give more teeth to sector regulator Trai.

Sibal had already announced that new policy will de-link licences from spectrum and had added that the tenure of mobile permits would be halved to 10 years when they come up for renewal. The draft plan also proposes to do away with roaming charges, introduce a stronger customer grievance redressal mechanism, recognize telecoms as an infrastructure sector giving it tax concessions, and extend preferential status to 'Made in India' hardware products.

Scarred by one of the biggest scandals in the country that led to the resignation and subsequent arrest of former communications minister A Raja, Sibal, on January 1 this year, after taking charge as the new minister, had said the government would bring in transparency and a level playing field for all service providers in the new telecom policy.​
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Important points related to Broadband Policy in India..

  1. To develop an eco-system for broadband in close coordination with stakeholder ministries to ensure availability of media for last mile access, aggregation layer, core network of adequate capacity, cost effective Customer Premise Equipment and environment for development of relevant applications. Regulatory policies to promote competition by encouraging service providers, whether large or small, to provide value added services under equitable and non-discriminatory conditions.
  2. To recognise telecom and broadband connectivity as a basic necessity like education and health and work towards ‘Right to Broadband’.
  3. To lay special emphasis on providing reliable and affordable broadband access to rural and remote areas by appropriate combination of optical fibre, wireless and other technologies. Optical fibre network will be initially laid up to the village panchayat level by funding from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Extension of optical fibre connectivity from village panchayats progressively to all villages and habitations. Access to this Optical Fibre Network will be open and technology neutral.
  4. To revise the existing broadband download speed of 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps and subsequently to 2 Mbps by 2015 and higher speeds of atleast 100 Mbps thereafter.
  5. To encourage Fibre To The Home (FTTH) by independent Infrastructure Providers (IPs) with enabling guidelines and policies, favouring fast transformation of cities and towns into Always Connected society.
  6. To incorporate enabling provisions in the current regulatory framework so that existing infrastructure including cable TV networks are optimally utilised for extending high quality broadband services in rural areas also.
  7. To establish appropriate institutional framework to coordinate with different government departments/agencies for laying of Optical Fibre Cable networks for rapid expansion of broadband in the country.
  8. To encourage indigenous manufacture of cost effective customer end terminals and devices including mobile devices, SIM cards with enhanced features etc.
  9. To build synergies between existing, on-going and future Government programs viz e- governance, e-panchayat, NREGA, NKN AADHAR, AAKASH tablet etc. and roll-out of broadband.
  10. To ensure the availability of sufficient microwave spectrum to meet current and future demand for wireless backhaul especially in prime bands below 12 GHz, in addition to higher spectrum bands. Unlicensed spectrum will be made available for proliferation of wireless broadband services.
  11. To stimulate the demand of broadband applications and services, work closely with Department of IT in the promotion of content creation particularly in vernacular languages which would enhance the investment in All-Internet Protocol (IP) networks including NGN.
  12. To take steps to minimize the cost per site in rural areas. The use of low power and renewable energy solutions will be promoted to reduce the operational costs and achieve sustainability in the long run.
  13. To undertake periodic review of methodology adopted for utilising USO fund and benchmarking the same against the best practices followed in other countries.
  14. To provide continued support from USO fund for converged communication services in commercially unviable rural and remote areas.
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Few more points in general...

  1. One Nation-One License to mean removal of Roaming charges on Mobile phone service.
  2. Full Mobile Number Portability and work towards One Nation – Free Roaming.
  3. 300 MHz spectrum to be made available by 2017
  4. Aim to make 500 MHz spectrum available by 2020
  5. Mission is to have special coverage of Remote, Rural areas across India.
  6. Protect consumer interest by promoting informed consent, transparency and accountability in quality of service, tariff, usage etc.
  7. Optimize transmission of services to consumers irrespective of their devices or locations by Fixed-Mobile Convergence thus making available valuable spectrum for other wireless services.
  8. Convergence of services will cover voice, data, video, Internet, VAS
  9. The technology neutral Unified Licenses are envisaged to be in two separate categories : (a) Network Service Operator (NSO)/ Communication Network Service Operator (CNSO) (b) Service Delivery Operator (SDO)/ Communication Service Delivery Operator (CSDO)
  10. To permit resale at retail level like MVNO
  11. De-link licenses issuances & spectrum allocations
  12. Spectrum to be made available at market valuations
  13. Seek TRAI recommendation on license framework
  14. Will allow trading, sharing, pooling of spectrum
  15. Will enact a separate spectrum act
  16. Aim is to have the policy take effect by December 2011



Also for the first time the DoT is asking for consumer feedback from the general population to make changes if it deemed fit to the Telecom policy.. A good opportunity for Broadband users to let DoT know that the current provisions are not enough & speed improvements should not be pushed to 2015. Don't forget to mention FUP & why it should be abolished for low speed connections.. Its not like that your demands will be met but atleast DoT may get to know what are the consumer aspirations of broadband users & how it could be improved...

Feedback @ DRAFT NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY- 2011

Complete set of highlights could be found here..

Highlights of draft National Telecoms Policy 2011 - The Economic Times

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My initial impressions --

1) local and STD and roaming is all abolished that means one rate for all.

Expect rise in prise for call rates.

2) no roaming means loss of revenue- so to recover that cost ,expect rise in call rates.

3) expect rise in rentals as well.

Right now we all have full value plans.

So those will go for sure.

4) broadband -- that promised increase in speed won't come for another year or so.

5) Indian industry making strides in manufacturing for Telecom gear-- its another big big thing.expect all private players to moan that it slows down our growth and innovation.
 
Seeing right to broadband as a necessity, I will gather that there will be additional taxes/cess on us to fund the same.

Broadband speeds from 256 kbps till whatever speeds they propose will be mostly FUPed. After FU ends, back to 128~256 kbps. Also this will come by next election year only, not before, so mostly another 5 yrs or even 10yrs.

Since roaming charges are expected to be done with, expect a three fold hike in all prepaid services, with local, std and sms. In postpaid, 4 fold hike, with rentals also going to rise.

Indian industry to make telecom is good, as long as there is good support, from the likes of qualcomm, etc.
 
Qualcom will support no doubt.

Problem is with buyer of the gear.

Buggers will say not this not that.

Why go away.

Our own Bsnl mtnl does not buy gear made by Indian Telecom industry.

This company is wholly owned Indian government agency and its under hell lot of debt.

This buyer prefers foreign made gear as it gets them kickbacks
 
The speeds should have been minimum to 2mbps may be next year itself. Why wait till 2015? :@
European countries double up their average speeds every two years.
Same criteria should have been implemented here too.
Unless deadlines are put to those companies they will try all methods possible to delay the implementation.
Just a gimmick i think.
 
challapradyumna said:
Can any one summarize in plain english. As a Broadband customer and as a cellphone user what can I expect.
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Expect no roaming charges. But to offset that loss, increase in calls, sms and rentals is inevitable. Also loss of inter connect charges will hit the bottom lines of BSNL pretty hard.

Broadband will become a right, similar to right to education. all villages to get broadband. Also, expect affordable broadband @ speeds of 1Mbps~2mbps. But to implement RTB, funding is needed. This money will come from us in name of cess and taxes.
 
thetoxicmind said:
The masses would be a little happier with the FUP hitting rock bottom at 512Kbps. 256Kbps is just plain sad. :|
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That would actually be sad... 512kbps is good enough for simple browsing only... I think they should move to 1mbps this year only & then maybe 2Mbps in 2015 ... Since it would be a huge improvement from 512kbps, ISP's would again resist it citing this huge jump & non feasibility/ affordability..

2Mbps was suppose to be implemented from January 2011 itself but ISP's deferred the recommendation by 5 years...
 
The speed after crossing FUP would change to 512kbps as anything lower will not be considered broadband once these changes are reflected. Currently 256kbps is the minimum speed for a connection to be considered broadband but once 512kbps becomes the new minimum then speed after FUP would also change to 512kbps.

Now, we have to see how long before these policies are put into effect.
 
Next two three years on name of policy implementation issues.

I have lost hopes on this policy tamasha.

Its still at draft stage.
 
pratikb said:
Next two three years on name of policy implementation issues.

I have lost hopes on this policy tamasha.

Its still at draft stage.
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The policy would be implemented sooner than you anticipate. The elections are coming & this is normal for govt to implement new benefits which affect a larger population. So the Mobile part will definitely see the day of light in the coming months. As for broadband, its not important for the govt at this time (no matter what they say).. So even if its implemented (just for 512kbps upgrade) it may take quite some time for the speeds to improve inline of the new definition.

Similar thing had happened in the past when govt. reduced mobile tariff & free incoming. That was implemented pretty soon while when 256kbps was denoted as the min speed of broadband, every ISP took its sweet time to implement it until TRAI issued a warning that 256kbps should be the bare min.
 
dude,

do you think all operators will accept loss of 10 % of their revenue easily?

all of them are going to increase their tariff to cover the loss which came out of roaming revenue loss,std loss and whom do you think it will be coming from.

i am telling you we will be back to higher tariffs .

that does not bode well for governement which is already reelng under all corruption charges.

unless they set a higher limit for cost per minute.

i think telecom is going to screw governement all over.

moment tariff goes high , see the public reaction.
 
pratikb said:
dude,
do you think all operators will accept loss of 10 % of their revenue easily?
all of them are going to increase their tariff to cover the loss which came out of roaming revenue loss,std loss and whom do you think it will be coming from.
i am telling you we will be back to higher tariffs .

that does not bode well for governement which is already reelng under all corruption charges.
unless they set a higher limit for cost per minute.

i think telecom is going to screw governement all over.
moment tariff goes high , see the public reaction.
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Prices would rise initially but later they will settle down.... When incoming charges were removed then also operators suffered losses but then with the increase in mobile penetration the call charges subsequently fell over time. What this move would do is that it would increase the competition & will trigger price drop later once the dust settles down.

The next major driver in the mobile arena is not revenue generated by calls only, but from exclusive content over various smartphones. If you notice the trends in the last few years the acceptance of smartphones have increased tremendously so now more & more people would look for content/ applications/ entertainment/ services on their smartphones. Not to forget internet on the smartphones is the new IN thing. These driver will keep the competition alive. At this day & age no company will be able to survive on the call revenues only & other growth drives are there to capture every bodies imagination. Mobile tariff is already quite saturated & hardly any operator can reap profits anymore. Therefore be ready for initial call charges increase but then they would subsequently fall over time... :)
 
moving forward????at the speed of a snail i guess!!!!!!;)

in other countries as new technologies comes rates of older technologies dec but here its opposite:)

low rates of gprs just keep increasing although better stuff liike 3g has come.wonder why TRAI dint bother to check rates of 3g or do they think its ecnomical:huh:

there were days when airtel used to provide unlimited gprs for 12 buck and now as the number of cusomers increased so did their rates and f*ked up policies 1gb unlimited ya right:@

im sure as the reach of bb increases something similar will happen to bb wherin the prices will be more than current 3g plans hav FUP at 2gb for unlimited:(
 
I agree with you guys.

Competition rises when their are more players.

Right now by summer, half of the guys will pull out of market with new exit policy.

When no. Of operations. Reduced, how will they compete??

I foresee

Airtel,

vodafone,

Reliance

Idea

Tata indicom, docomo

Aircel

Max to Max uninor

To stay in market,rest all will be gobbled up.

And great babus on private company's payroll but in bsnl offices will **** bsnl to maximum.

Where do you think we are headed?

Lets search of even think of broadband penetration.

Buggers say fair use policy must.

Bsnl still giving 2007 broadband plans today.

I really will look uptown the day when we get true broadband without a y fair use policy.
 
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