Driving service excellence
— Dr. RS Sharma
The telecommunication sector in India has had phenomenal growth ever since the first licenses for mobile services were issued In November 1994. At that time, only eight licenses were issued: two each in the four metros. Prior to that, India had only fixed lines and the tele-density was below 3%. The introduction of telecom licenses for the private players in 1994 led to a massive growth of wireless telephony in the country. The country today boasts of the latest technologies deployed in its telecommunications network.
From a per minute tariff of Rs 16 to call rates of a few paise and data downloads to the tune of 10 Gb per capita, it has been a remarkable journey. The overall countrywide data download is almost seven exabytes. All the apps that make our day-to-day life easier ride on the telecom infrastructure. Most importantly, the various apps of banks, Universal Payment Interface (UPI), and a number of wallets that make payment easier and swifter are all running on the telecom network. In fact, telecom has become the backbone for services across the sectors.
A recap of history
We at Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) can rightfully take credit for many of these achievements due to our policy of forbearance in tariff matters. We have also successfully guided the service providers to a fair and equitable regime of interconnection.
TRAI was established in 1997 through an Act of Parliament. By 1999, we came up with the tariff regulation principles whereby the market was segregated as rural and urban. Within the urban category, there was further segregation of usage as low, general, and commercial. This paved the way for protection of consumers. However, by 2003 the tariff was placed in forbearance indicating our approach towards light-touch regulation of the market.
The first framework for interconnection of telecom networks was brought about in 2002. With a view to encourage usage of cellular mobile services and bring about an increase in the subscriber base, TRAI notified the Telecommunication Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) Regulation, 2003. This regulation was responsible for introduction of the calling party pay (CCP) regime in the country. It also fixed the call termination charge for the first time. This led service providers to offer flexible tariff plans to subscribers.
TRAI has always facilitated fair competition in the market and protected the interest of consumers. Keeping this in view, the mobile number portability (MNP) service was launched in the country. MNP is a facility that allows mobile telephone subscribers to retain the mobile telephone number when they opt to move from one access provider to another access provider in the same or another licensed service area, irrespective of the mobile technology and licensed service area or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same access provider. MNP is essential for maintaining competition in the telecom sector. By making it easy for users to switch operators if they are dissatisfied or otherwise require a change, MNP ensures that users are not locked into a particular telecom service and thus imposes a competitive constraint on telecom operators.
Intra circle porting was launched in 2009, followed by “One Nation—Full Mobile Number Portability” in 2015. So far, more than 461 million portings have taken place in the
country. TRAI is making this process further smoother and reducing the time taken in porting from five days to three days. communication with subscribers who have registered themselves in the NCPR. In other words, promotional calls cannot be made to customers who have registered with the NCPR.