Telecom beyond Aadhaar

Even as political parties take to cellphones to fight the next elections, the numbers are a reminder that the telecom growth story is over

The noise over the shutdown of Aadhaar-linked KYC verification for new phone subscribers seems much ado about nothing. Not because how much more or less a telecom company will need to spend on paper verification as compared to what is now being cited as a “painless online Aadhaar authentication”. There’s much talk around whether a telecom operator will have to dish out Rs 250 per new subscriber or a fraction of that for paper verification, how large a distribution network one needs to access potential users, and if the physical process would be a drain on time and resources. Keep