RS Sharma, Chairman, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recalled memories of how digitisation was initiated and he also shared his thoughts on the way digitisation is shaping up in India. “We started our journey of digitisation in 2012 and in December 2015 we have initiated the 3rd phase of digitisation, which brought lot of positive changes and transparency for the entire industry,” expressed Sharma.
Lot of things can be done with the whole digitise infrastructure. There is a need to re-think and make changes in the current mechanism to take the full advantage of digitisation. “People are disappointed with the results of digitisation, as they thought it will bring revolution, which didn’t happen. But I think instead of getting disappointed, each of us stakeholders should think what are the other services that can be brought through digitisation.”expressed Sharma
Digital pipe can be leveraged to deliver much more content than what is being delivered so far.
Countries like Europe and America consists of large density of fixed lines. Each household has one fixed line, which is now started delivering broadband. “In India we have only 20 million fixed line phones, which is just 10 per cent of overall population. Thus, opportunity to deliver broadband services is very less. But we have 100 million cable TV connections, which can be leveraged to deliver broadband services effectively,” added Sharma.
Another area which require some thoughts is infrastructure sharing. In telecom sector, every operator is establishing its own tower. While one mobile tower is capable to manage 3-6 operators, then there is no need to own separate tower.“Telecom operators don’t want to share towers with their competitors, as they think they might lose their customers. But once this sharing model is enabled or pursued by TRAI or stakeholders, then people will realise that sharing and competition are not contradictory. Sharing and competition can happen simultaneously”, informed Sharma.
Sharing infrastructure will reduce the overall cost, thus consumer will get benefited. He informed that TRAI will soon roll out a consultation paper to seek comments on how infrastructure sharing can be enabled?
“Choice of consumer is extremely important. One of the essential consideration is consumer must have a choice. A data should be used wherever it can be used. Also quality service is another area where we are working upon to facilitate consumer,” added Sharma.
Sharma also mentioned that a cable TV subscriber must get a receipt. This transparency has to be brought about. Who owns the Set Top Box is another mystery of cable TV industry, whether the customer who is paying the initial payment or the cable TV operator?
Sharing his thoughts on Net Neutrality, Sharma said “No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged to the consumer on the basis of content,” Hopeful that TRAIwill be able to finalise views on net neutrality in a couple of months.
Sharma had initiated the idea of inter-portable STBs, many people tweeted that those fellow who don’t understand technology are taking decision related to technology. He opined that thinking about something should not be banned. That the idea behind initiating thisis to see that customer can have a choice. It may not work 100 per cent, but will in certain sections.
“Let’s not forget that we are here for the healthy development of industry and content. We should work towards that objective where we can offer quality content, we should give freedom to the consumer and also we should be clear and transparent in our charging policy to the consumer. It may hurt some stakeholder class, they might think this is the policy which is against them, but I can assure you that we are working with a very open mind in a very transparent and consultant manner. Whatever will be done is for the healthy development of the industry with the interest of stakeholder in mind, concluded Sharma.
RS Sharma, Chairman, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shared his views while addressing the opening keynote session at Casbaa India Forum 2016
