Scuttling Digital India
It was like an irony. Last month Voice&Data organized its annual conference and awards function Telecom Leadership Forum (TLF 2015) to discuss and celebrate industry achievements, just the they day after telecom operators committed to pay Rs 1,10,000 crore to hold on to spectrum. Remember this was spectrum they already possess since 2005, but to continue providing service, they needed to pay again. Without displaying an iota of anxiety and frustration about being already under the burden of Rs 1,50,000 crore debt, and that more borrowing will increase the burden further, industry captains received awards, delivered speeches, and clapped for one another at the function.
Clearly Indian telecom has the grit and the guts, and is in for the long haul. In fact, while going through the nominations for various award categories, the Voice&Data editorial team discovered that there is so much of young talent in this sector coming up with real innovation to improve telecom services, that it is amazing. Should we not encourage and support operators to invest and re-invest, rather than constantly eye their money.
I can assure Ravi Shankar Prasad our telecom minister who feels very proud at being able to extract Rs 1,10,000 crore, that had the operators spent all this money on hardware, software, and other accessories that is very critical to improve network quality and service which is in a mess today, the impact would have been far reaching and manifold. If this money had gone to enhance 4G/LTE, rural telephony, broadband penetration, mobile governance, green towers, mobile banking, content generation, and so on, the government would have still made lots of money through other taxes and charges. There is a huge telecom ecosystem that can completely transform Indian telecom industry and the consumers, but is today crying for attention. Just how many new ventures and jobs could get created is anybody’s guess. Unfortunately, almost 60 percent of this big money instead of going in for building and enhancing infrastructure, is going for business continuity. It’s like a big ransom money operators are paying to government to continue to be in business. Government’s greed is quite clear from the fact that, while they are making huge money today, they are also ensuring that artificial scarcity is created so that this revenue stream is sort of endless. They have still not come out with any spectrum sharing and trading guidelines, and put very little spectrum on auction thereby heating up bidding for the 900 MHz frequency from desperate operators. It is sad to see Narendra Modi’s government, which has promised to be different from the previous government, continue to view telecom as the hen that lays golden eggs, and not as a critical infrastructure that will transform the economy, the society and the people.
My two bit on this is that the role of the government should not be to collect money from a critical infra sector like telecom to fund it’s own in-efficiencies. If Ravi Shankar Prasad has any vision for India’s telecom (which as the driver of Indian telecom he should have), he must ensure that operators are encouraged to offer world class services at affordable rates to every Indian. I hope he does not end up scuttling prime minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India dream.
While I am unhappy with this Government’s view and policies on growing and improving Indian telecom, it pains me even more to see operators considering to charge consumers for accessing social media sites Facebook or WhatsApp. At a time when we are talking of how operators can and must collaborate with OTT and social media players, this would be a foolish approach and will only harm the operators. Can you think of a Digital India without FaceBook or WhatsApp ?