Whole vocabulary is changing, regulator must evolve with sector: Trai chief

The telecom sector in the country is now driven more by data and less by voice, settling on three-four operators. As its horizon widens, so do responsibilities of the regulator. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman R S Sharma, first to get a second term, discusses with Kiran Rathee various issues the sector is facing. Edited excerpts:

What would you like to do in your second term that you did not achieve in your first?

The chairman is not important here. The institution is way more important. Chairmen come and chairmen go; Trai is the continuing authority.

Broad functions of Trai are set down in the Act: It works for the growth of the industry, to create a competitive environment, take care of the health of the industry and protect consumers. We will continue to work towards this.

What is going to be Trai’s focus in the future?

Trai will continue to work to achieve its objectives and employ transparent, consultative, non-discriminatory, and non-predatory means. The regulator responds to situations, it cannot anticipate things.

We also believe in regulations that are light-touch. That helps the industry grow. There is a lot of innovation, technological change, and disruption. We have to think of these and should not create an environment that strangles growth.

From being a single vertical, the sector has now become a platform of communication for every sector of the economy.

When can we expect Trai to be renamed the Digital Communications Regulatory Authority of India?

The government has to make that change. The renaming has to be done when the Act is changed. Parliament has to pass a law for it.

But, Trai is already looking at broader issues involving cyber space, etc.

The entire sector has transformed in some sense. A couple of years back, we used to measure traffic in erlang, or how much time you keep a circuit busy. We used to measure tariff in minutes — how many paise per minute or second.

Things are not measured in these units anymore. Now it’s bits and bytes; megabytes and gigabytes. In some senses, voice is a product of data. Data is the fundamental raw material; voice, video, text — these are products or derivatives of that

The whole vocabulary is changing, so we have to evolve as a regulator also. Our light-touch regulations have to be technology-agnostic. It should not block innovations. These should be the fundamental principles. We have to achieve the objectives of the Trai Act through means that are keeping up with the times.

Now, 5G is coming. The way we do things has also changed.

Is this the right time for 5G in India?

I don’t think India is in any way behind as far as technology or application is concerned. We shall be ready as soon as other developed nations are. One thing we have to do to leverage newer technologies is to ensure huge infrastructure investments in fiberisation.

Currently, only about 20 per cent mobile towers are connected through fibre. We need this to be at least 80 per cent.

Will Trai reconsider its recommendations on pricing spectrum, if asked by the department of telecommunications (DoT) to do so?

I don’t answer hypothetical questions. We will cross the bridge when we come to it.

As of now, the situation is we have given the reserve price recommendations to the DoT. As and when new developments take place, we will take appropriate decisions.

The Supreme Court (SC) has barred use of Aadhaar by private companies, including authentication by telecom operators. How do you see the development as a regulator?

The Know Your Customer (KYC) is not part of the Trai remit. The DoT prescribes the KYC methodologies. We recommended the use of Aadhaar as electronic-KYC but the SC order has changed that. As and when the DoT asks for our advice, we will have a consultation.

When can we expect the consultation paper on regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) players?

I am going through the file. Possibly after Diwali, the consultation paper will come.

How do you see the state of the telecom industry now? Has normalcy returned?

I don’t see anything abnormal. I see two things. One, now, we have three-four players. I think it is a good thing. Two, because of the huge growth potential, the sector has a bright future.  

There is this continuous problem of dropped calls. What measures is Trai taking?

The quality of service is a continuing issue. It’s not as if we can provide a one-time solution. As and when problems occur, we come up with solutions.

About a year back, we introduced new benchmarks. Now, we have taken care of the averages issue. Those service providers not meeting the benchmarks are being financially dis-incentivised.

We have also increased the number of independent drive tests to multiple cities for network-quality check. But, if the problem still persists, we will continue to think of newer ways to tackle this issue.