Addressing IT's workforce woes

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: Apr 27 2012, 02:06 IST

NSDC could play key role in driving essential skill enhancement initiatives

Over the past 15 years, the IT industry has come a long way, witnessing unprecedented ups and downs and yet remaining one of the sectors with hope. Nasscom has predicted significant growth by 2020. To meet such large growth, India needs to develop its talent pool right at the universities.
With an about 25 lakh workforce, the Indian IT sector represents about 6% of the organised sector. Nasscom predicts the IT workforce will touch 30 million by 2020. Being heavily people-dependent, the biggest challenge for the industry will be to find the right quality engineers.
A recent national employability report states that only 20% of the engineering graduates from colleges are really employable in the IT industry. If a similar study was conducted 15 years back, the percentage of employable engineering graduates in the IT industry would have been much higher, as the industry was not as mature and expectations were comparatively low.
It is not surprising to see lower employability impacting admissions into engineering colleges. Reports indicate that there are no takers for engineering seats in many colleges. Further, over the past few years, engineering graduates from core domains like mechanical or electrical are reluctant to take IT precisely due to the same reason. In fact, many private colleges lack the intellectual infrastructure--broadband connectivity to access knowledge resources on the internet, libraries, and, most of all, a qualified and knowledgeable faculty.
A recent news report suggests that there are about 3,000 engineering colleges in India. Over 10 lakh students are admitted into engineering colleges every year. Essentially, the problem of quantity is addressed, however the challenge in terms of quality of engineers remains. What could be done to improve the quality and skill of our engineers?
The Indian education system needs an environment that fosters active partnerships between industry and colleges/universities. In the advanced countries, research work is given high priority among the engineering colleges/universities. Research activities help the students to think out of the box and also are supported by the industry through grants.
As per the Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee report in 2011, India lags way behind China in terms of university research in engineering and technology. India produces 1,000 PhDs annually in technology and engineering, compared to 8,000-9,000 in the US and China. Why? Unlike India, both the US and China have large well-funded universities that encourage higher education.
The Kakodkar report also emphasises the need for rapid improvement needed in research infrastructure in India, including the IITs. China, for example, has 3 times more enrolment for master’s programmes in engineering and management. Innovation and research orientation during university education will not only encourage students to pursue specialisation, but also help them become entrepreneurs.
AICTE could upgrade the syllabus to be more attuned with industry needs, by focusing on fundamental building blocks like programming and specific domains like banking, retail, telecom, etc. Business schools like IIMs have linked their course content to the industry and have successfully created industry-ready professionals.
Should the duration of the course (say, B.Tech) be increased by a few months? This could help in accommodating a sandwich programme, popular among advanced countries, which would provide direct work experience to the engineers. There are bound to be challenges in implementing this due to the scale. Industry buy-in will be key for the success of such an effort.
Using non-engineering graduates in the IT industry has been successful in patches, primarily driven by a few large organisations. This could be replicated for scale, through tie-ups between universities and industry, with skill enhancement on focused areas. The Government of India’s National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIEIT), more commonly known as DOEACC, offers courses ranging from diplomas to MTech across the country. However this has not gained popularity.
A report states that 62% of the students require training to be eligible for any job in the IT sector. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), often referred to as a finishing school, offers skill-bridging training programmes to engineering graduates on focused areas. There are also few private finishing schools providing training to enable industry-ready engineers. However, such initiatives may be grossly inadequate to address the large-scale need.
The National Skill Development Council (NSDC) could play a key role in driving skill enhancement initiatives needed in the IT industry across the country. NSDC, being a high visibility initiative of the government, and has received a R1,000 crore allocation in the recent budget. NSDC is aimed to fulfil the growing need for skilled manpower across 21 sectors, including IT, and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skills. NSDC has formed Sector Skill Development Councils to approve training curriculums and deliver the right value. Nasscom has joined NSDC to lead the sector skill council for IT. The Nasscom-NSDC engagement is expected to help the IT industry scale pilot initiatives and build technology as the enabler for skill development in the country.
NSDC could lead the effort in bring Nasscom, universities and private/government establishments like C-DAC together and create a charter for providing the right platform to bridge the skill gap for the IT industry. Such a programme should also help in improving soft skills and communication skills, which are often found lacking among many engineers.
So far, NSDC has primarily focused on the unorganised sector. Such an initiative in IT can help establish NSDC as a key player in the organised sector. Innovative business models can be developed, creating a win-win situation for all the stakeholders, including the students. With the government’s focus on improving broadband reach in the country, coupled with the availability of affordable devices, innovative and cost effective training methods can be implemented.
The demand for an IT workforce in India is expected to grow multi-fold over the next few years. The current employability rate among engineering graduates is alarming. Universities could relook at the duration of the courses and upgrade syllabus to be attuned with industry needs. For innovation and research to flourish, industry-academia interaction needs to be strengthened. Importantly, NSDC could play an important role in creating the right platform for enhancing the skills of India’s next-gen engineers!

The author is vice-president, Engineering, at Symphony Teleca. Views are personal

 

Karnataka's mobile users are country's most dissatisfied

Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012, 14:57 IST | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA

Subir Ghosh

Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya

As of January 2012, 34 lakh consumers in Karnataka have made mobile number portability requests.

Gayatri Kumar is disenchanted and annoyed. This homemaker from Rajajinagar had fallen for ‘extra talk time’ and ‘free roaming incoming’ sops that Tata Docomo had thrown her way last July. The solemn promises that the mobile service provider made went unkept. Her bills kept soaring despite her limited usage; and to make matters worse, whenever she stepped out of town, the network would die on her.
Ganesh Shankar is equally upset, only that in his case the service provider is BSNL. When the IT professional makes his weekend trips to the interiors, the calls from his colleagues ring clear. Network disturbances, however, leave him frustrated while in metros like Mumbai and Bangalore.
Kumar and Shankar are among millions of consumers in Karnataka who were so dissatisfied with their mobile connections that they opted for another service provider in the last one year. The state has received the maximum number of mobile number portability (MNP) requests in the country, according to a recent report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

"It is more of a person trying to show his/her anger at a particular operator. The fact remains that there is nothing much to choose between operators in terms of quality of service" G Krishna Kumar

As of January 2012, 34 lakh consumers in Karnataka have made MNP requests. Though Delhi has the highest teledensity at about 23.8 crore, the number of MNP requests registered there (about 15 lakh) is far less than Karnataka, which has a teledensity of about 9.6 crore. Andhra Pradesh comes second in MNP requests with 30 lakh, followed by Gujarat.
The MNP facility was introduced across the country in January last year

 

Dialling Progress

Financial Chronicle 27th Feb 2012, FC KNOW


By V Sridhar, G Krishna Kumar Feb 27 2012

Despite 10-12 operators in each licence service area, a lot needs to be done to improve data communication quality

Complete network outages, frequent call drops, busy networks not able to allocate capacity, and poor call receptions have become daily woes for a typical mobile subscriber, although India boasts itself of more than 850 subscribers and the second largest mobile market in the world, with 10-12 operators in each licence service area. While this is the case of voice communications, much work is needed to define and improve quality of data communication when the country is on the verge of broadband revolution and uptake.

Although different approaches have been adopted in various jurisdictions, the regulatory goal according to International Telecom­munications Union (ITU) should be to ensure: The delivery of acceptable service for the telecommunications user; and that consumers are aware of the variations in performance from various service providers thereby allowing them to make an educated choice regarding their preferred service provider.

However, ironically, the latest Trai report on Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators (January 2012) shows that the quality of service (QoS) performance of most of the wireless service providers meets the benchmark levels and have even improved in certain areas. The network performance data for Trai’s QoS reports are provided by the operators but audited by an independent agency.

The Trai initiated QoS regulation in 2000 and revisited the measurement and metrics in 2008. It was acknowledged in Trai’s notification in 2009 that operator provided network data alone is not sufficient to measure QoS, and it was mentioned to measure customer perception on network performance, reliability and availability. However, till date the implementation of the above is scarce.

The objective assessment of QoS by auditor(s) based on network data is available for different service areas. However, we could find only one public report of the assessment conducted by an auditor in Karnataka circle in September 2011 that includes both the audited network data as well as subscriber perception. Ironically, while the network data relating to accessibility and retainability of calls of all the operators were above benchmark levels of 95 per cent (not only in this report but in all service areas), the customer perception on network performance was on the average about 73 per cent, much below the threshold level of 95 per cent. Further assessments conducted by Trai in other circles conveniently omitted customer perception data on network performance.

During the Trai consultation process in 2008, it was also mentioned by some stakeholders to specify more stringent and comprehensive set of QoS parametres to check end-to-end quality of calls and “user perceived speech quality” using techniques such as Mean Opinion Score (MOS)/ Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ). A live listener test performed by unbiased listeners in a controlled end-to-end network setting as per defined ITU recommendations to arrive at MOS/ PESQ score is an effective way to benchmark the speech quality across different networks.

Looking at the wide disparity between what we as subscribers experience and what is reported by the network operators or even by the auditors, Trai should actively consider collecting customer perception of network performance. In fact, it is now time for the regulator to define “Quality of experience (QoE)” as this is what matters to end subscribers. For transparency, Trai should also mandate the mobile operators to provide dropped calls details to individual subscribers and reasons for the same as part of monthly billing statement or through SMS when a call is dropped. Subscribers should not be charged for dropped calls due to the network faults. Further, in India the QoS of emergency calls are not measured and monitored. In the wake of disasters such as train accidents and natural calamities striking us every day in some part of the country, it is time to think about mandatory implementation of mobile emergency calls and monitoring the performance of the same.

While robust metrics such as the ones mentioned above do exist for the measurement of QoS and QoE, they are weaker in data networks. Though Trai’s quality of service of Broadband Service Regulations 2006 does indicate critical network parameters such as bandwidth utilisation during peak hours, packet loss, latency, downlink and uplink speeds and the methodology of the measurement for the same, some of the parameters such as latency are not reported in the Trai’s performance reports. Further, customer perception of broadband performance is also not measured. The benchmark data is also available only for wireline and not for wireless operators.

As diverse range of services such as internet telephony, email, and video streaming are capable of being provided over broadband networks, it is time to provide a comprehensive framework along the lines suggested by the ITU by specifying QoS/ QoE parametres for different category of services. For example, Finnish Regulatory Authority provided network speed measurement software to subscribers so that they can measure objectively the speed of the data link compared to what is contracted and charged. As unrestricted internet telephony is expected to be implemented soon, challenges abound for measuring the quality of internet telephony calls as well.

Finally, the bigger question is what if the operators are found not meeting the benchmark levels. As of now the Trai just publishes the QoS report and does not levy any financial penalty on the violators. However, in Trai’s recommendations in 2009, it is mentioned that Trai will consider imposing financial penalty on the errants, much similar to what has been implemented for unsolicited commercial communications.

It is time that DoT gives up some of its power as licensor and through amendment of Trai act, gives teeth to the regulator including levying penalties on the operators found violating QoS norms.

(V Sridhar is research fellow, Sasken Communication Technologies & G Krishna Kumar is VP-delivery, Symphony Teleca Corporation, Views are personal)

Mobile handset industry: Is change the name of the game?

February 1, 2012 14:55 IST, Rediff Business - Technology

Mobile Handset Industry: Is change the name of the game?

(G Krishna Kumar is a wireless Telecom professional based in Bangalore.  Blog: http://bloggerkrishnak.blogspot.com, krishnak.krishnak@gmail.com  Views expressed are personal)

Who could have predicted the rise of newcomers Google or Apple in the mobile arena and fall of the traditional market leaders, a few years back? In fact, the Top 5 ranked Smartphone vendors have changed dramatically over the last 5 years. 

Changing Market dynamics

The Mobile industry’s structure has witnessed unprecedented and tumultuous changes over the past two decades as the trendsetters and leaders have rapidly changed. Up until a few years back, the mobile Industry was controlled by the handset manufacturers or OEMs such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc on one hand and the Mobile operators on the other hand.

Japan, long considered as a top technology innovator and a pioneer in the mobile Industry has suddenly seen its leadership position eroding.  Although Japan has quite a few firsts to its credit like the concept of App store and mobile money,  the Japanese mobile industry of late has been struggling to keep pace with the Apple-Google effect.

The sheer size of the mobile phone market drives every other hardware or software vendor to believe that they have a high chance of being successful. This has led to creation of many software phone platforms, by companies with deep Mobile Industry expertise and through consortium. However, a few met with limited success and rest simply vanished. Google’s Android, the open source software platform is perhaps the most successful thus far.

In general, why is the Smartphone market important for OEMs and operators? While Smartphones offer maximum margin to OEMs, it also helps in increased data revenue for Operators. Content providers also enjoy direct benefits due to higher consumption of services and applications by Smartphone users.

Apple-Google double impact

The launch of Apple’s iphone and Google’s Android has created an unprecedented double-impact on the mobile Industry - iphone is still the undisputed reference for a Smartphone and has created an “Aspirational value” among business users and consumers alike. In contrast, Google’s Android has ensured availability of hundred of phones at affordable prices.

Apple’s user experience was a game changer, considering that many OEMs over the past 15 years failed in creating a compelling touch driven user experience. Android has played a key role in drastically reducing Smartphone prices to less than Rs5000. Android has significantly reduced engineering and R&D cost, thus lowering the entry barriers in the OEM space. No wonder the Indian OEMs like Micromax, Lava etc provide tough competition to established players in the Indian market. The Semiconductor companies have also enabled this change as they seek to win market share and also be competitive in offering comprehensive solutions to OEMs. Reduction in Hardware and semiconductor costs have also helped in bringing down the phone cost.

Apple is credited for being vertically integrated - offering Applications and content to its users through the App store and the recently launched iCloud service. Google’s App store too experienced tremendous success. This has resulted in a huge disruption in the market allowing users to personalize their phones from lakhs of Applications in the App store. Earlier, users had to depend exclusively on their operator to download Apps/content and this was working nicely for the operators’ walled-garden approach. Large global operators on their part, continue to believe in providing quality apps to its subscribers, but with limited success.

Traditionally, a phone’s life-cycle from concept to realization has taken roughly 18 to 20 months. Over the past couple of years, the cycle has shrunk by more than half.  Newer models hit the market every few months. The drastic reduction in the phone creation cycle has naturally reduced the number of differentiating features among phones. Increasingly product differentiation among the various mobile phones is reducing by the day and the Mobile market is looking more like TV and other consumer electronics market.

More Challenges/ opportunities and more changes!

With most OEMs under severe margin pressure, such a hyper competitive environment is certain to witness more consolidation, allowing only the strong and truly innovative ones to survive. Traditional hardware manufacturers can certainly cause disruption, but the challenging times are here to stay in the OEM space. Operators, on the other hand may eventually have to remain contented being a data-pipe provider (aka landline broadband providers).

As the role of mobile devices becomes ever more important in people’s lives, the platform powering the devices will play a critical role. Hence, more platforms like Android will emerge, however it is unlikely that Android will be displaced in the near future. RIM (creator of Blackberry) is expected to push its platform aggressively. However, Microsoft’s mobile platform may emerge as a dark horse, especially as Nokia has been able to move faster than before.

Another challenge that has come to the fore is Patents. Patent and royalties have always been part of the mobile Industry, but only recently has the patent war been so public. In the past most patent disputes have been relatively low key affairs resolved issues behind closed doors.  In order to strengthen their position, over the last few quarters companies have made significant investment in acquiring available patents from Nortel and IBM, Google buying Motorola etc.  With the on-going cases around the Android platform, and Apple's recent successful patent lawsuit against HTC, it's clear that the patent war is not going to subside anytime soon.

It is proven beyond doubt that in such a market, Innovative companies with strong IP portfolio have a distinct edge. Interacting with the mobile through gestures or tracking eye movement may re-define the market. Will Google’s future technology – Wearable computers bring about the ultimate disruption in the market. 

Apple has tried to maintain the stickiness quotient with its customers and there-by retaining its loyal customer base, however, will Apple be able surprise its users with innovative offerings every year?  Will Apple become a network service provider (MVNO), thereby creating an even tighter vertical integration and provide everything from handsets, network access, content to storage for its users?

The current social networking wave would continue, however, the next wave could well be Mobile-money or mobile wallet. Will other countries be able to repeat Japan’s success in Mobile Money?

Summing-up, the power equation in the Mobile Industry has shifted away from Operators/ OEMs to platform providers. Android and iphone, considered outsiders from a mobile industry perspective were able to revolutionize the mobile Industry and have created immense positive network externalities. Due to the dynamic nature of this industry, anyone within or outside the mobile ecosystem now have an equal chance of changing the mobile Industry. Amidst all the changes and challenges faced by the Industry, for the average mobile phone user, the good times are here to stay!

Reading this, you enjoy double subsidy

Dailypost India , Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Krishna Kumar

It is a fact universally acknowledged that children imbibe habits from their parents. My father rose every morning and looked for the news paper, the first thing he did each morning. I too have grown into the habit of reading the newspaper first thing each morn.

Over the past few years, I wondered if the Indian news papers will vanish due the ever increasing breaking news TV channels and online news content. It is however heartening that the newspaper Industry in India seems to be thriving.

I really only appreciated the value of Indian newspaper only when I started travelling across the world. Thanks to my work as a software engineer, I have had the opportunity to visit many countries and live in some places abroad.  There are parts of the world wherein finding an English-language newspaper can be hard. Not always I had an English newspaper delivered to my room while living abroad.

When I first started travelling the world, I would think to myself that the cost of just one newspaper in some countries would fetch me my newspaper back home for the whole month! In course of time, however, I dropped the currency-conversion habit and began to buy a paper.

I've found that in the West, many newspapers are heavy on local content. Even so m given that the world is now a 'global village', it is never hard to comprehend the news.

While abroad, I pose questions to my foreign colleagues to get a sense of whether i'm forming impressions that they share. I would ask my colleagues if they knew that India has more daily newspapers than any other country in the world. Twenty of the world's top hundred newspapers are printed in India.

My colleagues tell me that they are not surprised that such a large number of newspapers come out of India;after all it is such a populous country!

I have also sometimes compared the cost of a newspaper to a litre of petrol. In most countries, the cost of the newspaper is almost the same as a litre of petrol, even though there is no direct co-relation between the prices of these two items. Only in India is there such a vast difference.

 Come to think of it, in India, inflation or not, the price of the newspaper has remained stable. There were even a few years when newspapers were available for just one rupee, due to cut-throat competition.

I've wondered how Indian newspapers were priced so low. An editor of a leading newspaper recently mentioned that while printing a newspaper costs at least Rs 12, it is sold at a heavily subsidized price.

As an average Indian, I enjoy something of a 'double subsidy'. I get a subsidised newspaper, and when I sell my stack of raddi, I get nearly 30 percent of what I spent on my already subsidized newspaper right back! The low pricing is possible thanks to advertisements.

Indian newspapers are rich in content are attractively priced. But not so many Indian readers will appreciate that they are truly lucky, to have such attractive newspapers priced so low! Long live the Indian Newspaper!

Krishna Kumar is an IT professional based in Bangalore

Infrastructure and Literacy

Financial Express ,  FE Special

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: Oct 26 2011, 03:40 IST

Despite all the hype about information technology, India is ranked a lowly 116 among 152 countries in the ICT Development Index (IDI) as per ITU’s (International Telecommunications Union) 2011 report. In fact, India has just improved by one rank in the IDI between 2008 and 2010.
It is well established that broadband uptake plays an important role in a country’s ICT growth. Reports suggest that a 10% increase in broadband penetration results in close to a 1.4% increase in a country’s GDP. In fact, in China, every 10% increase in broadband penetration is seen as contributing an additional 2.5% to GDP growth.
Globally, the US, Korea and Japan are leaders in broadband penetration. There are plenty of examples of government initiatives yielding unprecedented growth in broadband— South Korea’s Korea 21, Australia’s National Broadband Network, the EU’s Digital Agenda, Singapore’s iN2015 Master Plan etc. For the technically inclined, broadband is defined as a connection that provides a minimum of 256kbps. While the US has recently tried to raise the minimum speed, the rest of the world, including ITU and OECD, still consider 256 kbps as broadband. In fact, this speed is quite adequate for a large majority of users.
The recent draft National Telecom policy (NTP) 2011 plans to achieve 175 million broadband connections by 2017. Considering that the previous broadband policy failed to meet the goals, how can we be sure that this time around the goals are realistically achievable? Should we simply depend on 3G for broadband uptake?
Why was the broadband uptake slow?
The 2004 broadband policy had set a goal of 20 million broadband users in India by 2010, but in reality only half of that was achieved. Why? The PSU telcos enjoyed a huge monopoly in the fixed-line segment, with over 80% connections. It is well known that the PSUs have challenges in adding broadband connections by themselves due to their antiquated procedures/policies. Also, due to the lack of regulation on unbundling of local loop (sharing the infrastructure among Internet service providers and competing operators), the ISPs were not able to utilise BSNL’s last mile infrastructure. Broadband tariff has not seen reduction akin to the mobile world. It is also observed that India’s fixed-line broadband speeds are far lower compared to the rest of the world, primarily due to lack of maintenance.
Although cable TV has picked up significantly in India, coaxial cable-based broadband did not witness similar uptake due to licensing requirements, quality of infrastructure, and lack of awareness in terms of cost and quality of connection. The lack of awareness among people concerning Internet usage and availability of simple plus meaningful local content acted as a dampener for broadband uptake. Another factor was the inadequate availability of affordable Internet-enabled devices together with high broadband connection costs. So, BSNL enjoyed no competition for two years in 3G deployment and still was not successful in increasing the wireless broadband user base.
Create infrastructure and ecosystem
After the 2010 spectrum auction, 3G and BWA trends indicate that mobile broadband is certain to witness significant addition over the next few years, especially with newer and lower-priced devices like tablets, laptops etc hitting the market. This, coupled with more attractive tariffs, will boost broadband adoption. Any government regulations to improve spectrum efficiency by allowing re-farming and spectrum-sharing among operators will certainly augur well for mobile broadband adoption.
However, due to the limitations of spectrum availability, infrastructure costs and the anticipated demand for huge bandwidth, an alternative long-term broadband solution is needed for India.
The government’s plan to create a pan-India, wired broadband infrastructure with USOF-funded National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is certainly a step in the right direction. NOFN is expected to connect 2,500 village panchayats and would allow all the private operators’ broadband services to rural areas. India already has 7.5 lakh kilometres fibre laid out by private operators. Globally, there are several examples of optical fibre-based networks being successfully deployed and resulting in a huge uptake in broadband.
Once implemented, NFON will certainly give impetus for e-governance initiatives such as e-health, e-banking and e-education. However, given that a PSU telco has been tasked with implementing NFON, the moot question is whether the NOFN infrastructure will really be ready by 2014?
Availability of affordable tablets or PCs will certainly help in rapid broadband adoption. So the government’s initiative in launching the subsidised ultra-low-cost tablet device Aakash is a welcome move. The government’s plan in supporting semiconductor fabs will enable indigenous hardware development. This, coupled with encouragement for R&D and IPR creation, will provide the impetus for availability of affordable devices. Relevant local content and attractive tariffs are also needed for broadband uptake.
Literacy/e-literacy
India has seen unprecedented growth in mobile connections with teledensity reaching over 70%, and with rural teledensity growing at an impressive rate from 1.9% in 2005 to over 35% now. In spite of this phenomenal transformation in communication, India’s human development index stands at an appalling 119th rank of 169 countries.
The literacy level in India must be increased as it is well established that literacy translates into growth and economic development. The latest United Nations HDI trends indicate that countries like Russia, Brazil and China are way ahead compared to India in terms of youth literacy. All the three countries are far ahead of India in terms of broadband penetration as well.
Reports suggest that overall India has less than 10% computer literate population and only 32% of people living in cities are computer literate. Another important area for successful adoption of broadband is to improve e-awareness. This would enable users to understand and appreciate the value of technology and help increase the adoption rate. It is equally important to encourage meaningful/productive use of the Internet. The government could deploy USOF and embark on a mission to increase Internet/mobile broadband/computing awareness with an active collaboration amongst various stakeholders such as the government, telcos, learning content providers, universities, schools and local administration.
NTP 2011 aptly recognises the need for Right to Broadband. A strong broadband network can form the backbone of this country and hence the need to treat broadband
as an essential basic service. For enhancing positive network externalities, it is imperative that the government undertakes measures to improve infrastructure, support an indigenous ecosystem, and rapidly increases literacy/e-literacy across the country.
The author is director and delivery head for mobile devices, Teleca software solutions India.
Views are personal

For Telecom Sense Today

Econmic Times, 21st October 2011, Editorial Page

Draft Telecom Policy 2011 lacks an operational framework

The writers, V Sridhar & G Krishna Kumar are wireless professionals based in Bangalore. Views are personal
The recently-announced draft Telecommunications Policy, 2011, lacks an operational framework. It has a clause on spectrum sharing, but recent DoT action to scrutinise the 3G roaming pacts of certain operators raises a fundamental question as to whether the government should put a stop to the actions of the operators who, by sharing the infrastructure and scarce spectrum, try to improve the efficiency of providing wireless broadband services.

This is not to say that operators can violate rules and regulations. However, since telecom regulations and policies are found to be trailing technology and practice for most parts, is it time to rethink about being flexible in our policy formulation and implementation?
Given the constraints in spectrum, lower disposable income of the general populace and the glaring rural-urban divide, telecom operators in the country indeed have done a tremendous job in their innovative offerings- often referred to as frugal innovation - to increase the utility of their subscribers. This is evident in the improved telecom penetration levels, low prices and the increased contribution of the telecom sector to the country's GDP: more than 3.5% currently.
By cooperatively sharing the spectrum, much like the passive tower-sharing as being practised as a norm in the industry, the operators can potentially reduce costs, optimally use the allotted spectrum and enlarge coverage areas, leading to the birth of 'secondary spectrum market' in India. As long as it increases the social welfare - i.e., profit of the operators as well as subscriber utilities - government shall not stand in the way. However, the process should be transparent so that all stakeholders, including subscribers and the government, are aware of the sharing pacts. Hence, the need of the hour is guidelines for spectrum-sharing for operators to follow.
Some CDMA operators use 800 MHz spectrum to provide 3G EVDO service. Though 800 MHz was allotted for 2G services, it is better suited for 3G services. This method of use, referred to as spectrum refarming, is not allowed in the policy. However, nobody is complaining as both the operators as well as subscribers earn positive net utility out of this initiative. Though the draft policy reiterates delinking licence (for the provisioning of services) from spectrum, appropriate interpretation and implementation is required relating to the above context.
Similarly, the recent move to cancel the licences of one of the spectrum winners of broadband wireless access (BWA) service on what seem to be minor deviations in the application process, might throw a spanner in India experimenting with leading-edge technologies in wireless broadband service (reports suggest this move is now being withdrawn).
The licensing procedure should be simple enough as long as scarce resources such as spectrum for providing the required service are priced and paid for appropriately. In a very good move, the draft policy advocates unifying different licences to just two - network service operator and service delivery operator - that should simplify the licence maze.
It is not that the government and regulator didn't track technology and market activities earlier. On some occasions, the policies were modified in tune with the market conditions. In early 2003, the government imposed access deficit charge (ADC), a cross-subsidy initiative wherein private telecom operators were required to pay to fixedline providers, mainly BSNL, for sustaining its rural wireline network. However, taking cognisance of the fact that ADC created an unfair tax burden on mobile, national and international long-distance service, and also to stop grey market operations, the Trai abolished the ADC in April 2008.

Another example is the changes brought out in the applicability of Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Though NTP 1999 envisioned reimbursement of the net cost of providing universal service in rural areas from the USOF only to basic telecom operators, realising the role of mobile services in providing affordable communication services, the government enabled support for mobile services as well from the USOF through Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2006.
To sum up, though the draft Telecom Policy, 2011, recognises convergence, technology evolution and market developments, the government and the regulator should interpret the broad policy initiatives within the context of improving social welfare and act accordingly. Thanks to the much publicised 2G scam, decisions in telecom are being stalled and postponed. Micromanaging by posing bureaucratic hurdles only will stall progress of telecom in the country and might turn the once golden goose of liberalisation to a dead horse!