New Government, New Hopes

The election marathon is finally over and India now has a new Government. With the Congress and its allies winning an almost decisive mandate, there's a lot of optimism that we will some movement and clarity on several long-pending issues. From the telecom industry point of view, the two most important items on the to-do list are:

1. Auction of 3G and BWA spectrum

2. Action on the recommendations of the committee on spectrum-related issues

It's high time that India had a clear and forward-looking spectrum policy. The current ad-hoc approach has benefited none of the interested parties including mobile operators, the end user as well the exchequer. Over the past few days, a lot of noise has been generated by the Congress' desire to keep infrastructure-related ministries within the party in order to accelerate development on several existing and upcoming projects. Let's hope that telecom infrastructure is also accorded due importance by the new government.

Blazing ahead!

The remarkable growth in Indian mobile subscribers continues unabated. As per figures released by the regulator TRAI, a record 15.64 million new connections were added in March. With the two CDMA biggies (Reliance and Tata) rolling out GSM networks as well, India is all set to breach the 500 million mark before the end of 2009.  For more, see the Lightreading story. The complete report can be downloaded from the TRAI website.

A Guide to India's Telecom Market

Lightreading has come up with another excellent report on the Indian telecom market. It covers a number of aspects including the licensing regime, fixed and wireless services providers, role of infra-sharing, rural coverage.

Spectrum Policy 2.0

An insightful post from Dean Bubbley on new concepts in spectrum management.

It's Official: 3G Auction Postponed

The DoT has published a revised timetable for the much-awaited auction of 3G spectrum. As per the latest announcement, the key dates are as follows:

Last date for applications: 15/01/09
Publication of ownership details: 16/01/09 (19/01/09)
Bidder ownership compliance certificate: 20/01/09 (21/01/09)
Pre-qualification of bidders: 22/01/09
Mock auction: 27-28/01/09
Start of 3G auction: 30/01/09
Start of BWA auction: 2 days after the end of 3G auction

Note that the dates in brackets are for BWA only.