The telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) chairman RS Sharma does not mince his words on consumer welfare, even if it is at the cost of antagonizing the biggies of telecom industry. He does not hesitate in calling a spade a spade.
When I recently met Sharma in his office to discuss the issue of call drops, he said that he failed to understand the telecom operators’ stand on call drops. On the one hand, the operators blame inadequate spectrum for frequent call drops, and on the other hand they oppose sale of spectrum through Open House sessions organized by TRAI. He also pointed out Bharti Airtel’s purchase of Spectrum from Videocon at a price that is 65 per cent higher than the reserve price recommended by the TRAI.
It did not come as a surprise to me when, last week, TRAI told the Supreme Court that “There is cartel of four-five telecom companies having billion subscribers, who are making Rs250 crores a day from outgoing calls. They have stupendous growth but they are making minimum investment on their network to improve the quality of service on their network to curb call drops.”
TRAI also pointed out that the investment by Telcos in China was about ten times the investment in India in last five years.
Telecom operators were prompt to react and issued a statement saying that the subscribers in India pay one of the lowest tariffs in the world and the Telcos pay very high spectrum fee to the Government. The companies have already leveraged their financial ability to raise debt.
So what is the truthIJ The fact is that the Teclos can’t shrug off their responsibility. If they have taken licence to operate services, it is their duty to meet the quality of service norms. Call drops has become a menace, especially in big cities. How can they put blame on low tariffsIJ Who has asked them to offer low tariffsIJ They have themselves set up call rates. If the Telcos do not have adequate spectrum to offer data services, why do they offer data servicesIJ Interestingly, the quality of services in data is equally bad.
At the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that spectrum is basic requirement for providing good quality of services. In China, the three state-run operators China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom hold close to 100 MHz spectrum each. No wonder, the China has witnessed broadband revolution much earlier.
I feel that merger and acquisition is the only solution to this problem. The recent merger of RCOM, MTS and Aircel is a step in this direction. Similarly, Bharti Airtel has recently acquired spectrum from Aircel and Videocon. Government should take more steps to encourage mergers in the Telecom sector.
(The writer is a Senior Journalist)