History of the Telecom Industry • 1851First operational land lines were laid by the government near Calcutta (seat of British power) • 1881Telephone service introduced in India • 1883Merger with the postal system 1923Formation of Indian Radio Telegraph Company (IRT) • 1932Merger of ETC and IRT into the Indian Radio and Cable Communication Company (IRCC) • 1947Nationalization of all foreign telecommunication companies to form the Posts, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT), a monopoly run by the government’s Ministry of Communications • 1985Department of Telecommunications (DOT) established, an exclusive provider of domestic and long-distance service that would be its own regulator (separate from the postal system) • 1986Conversion of DOT into two wholly government-owned companies: the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) for international telecommunications and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for service in metropolitan areas. 1997Telecom Regulatory Authority of India created. • 1999Cellular Services are launched in India, New National Telecom Policy is adopted. • 2000DoT becomes a corporation, BSNL Constraints • Slow pace of the reform process . It would be difficult to make in-roads into the semi-rural and rural areas because of the lack of infrastructure. The service providers have to incur a huge initial fixed cost to make inroads into this market. Achieving break-even under these circumstances may prove to be difficult. • The sector requires players with huge financial resources due to the above mentioned constraint. Upfront entry fees and bank guarantees represent a sizeable share of initial investments. While the criteria are important, it tends to support the existing big and older players. Financing these requirements require a little more liberal approach from the policy side. Problem of limited spectrum availability and the issue of interconnection charges between the private and state operators. Future Trends • further liberalization, • Increase in the Spectrum. • Consolidation of the smaller players. • convergence of technologies & the ability of private players to offer it to the market faster than the incumbent operator. Telecom in the real sense means transfer of information between two distant points in space Telecom is a huge and varied bastion of technologies, companies, services and politics that is truly global in nature Introduction • Regulatory discord • Cut-throat competition • Emergence of Technologies • Convergence, • Costly Technological upgrades
