Telecom industry representatives today called for greater support from the Government if the ambitious objectives of telecom penetration in rural areas were to be met by 2011. The effort should be to reduce the high cost of implementation through sharing of mobile infrastructure, ensuring power supply on right cost and alternative use of non-conventional energy sources and application of new technologies, they said.
Speaking at a Brainstorming Workshop on “Telecom Infrastructure Focus for Rural Reach”, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today, Mr Ajay Bhattacharya, Administrator, (USO Fund), DoT, said the government would like the industry to pursue the option of sharing active mobile infrastructure in addition to passive infrastructure like cell towers, etc. “We need to take sharing to the next level so as to optimize both CAPEX and OPEX,” he said.
Admitting the energy costs had to be tackled on an urgent basis, he informed that the DoT had set up a committee to look into non-conventional sources of energy that would address the dispersed nature of the industry’s requirement. The committee has submitted its report recently and “the USO is committed to taking it further by initiating pilots in several pockets,” he said.
Mr Anil Sardana, Chairman, CII National Committee on Telecom & Broadband & MD, Tata Tele Services Ltd, said that for the growth story in the telecom sector to continue and to meet the development objectives of the government, it was imperative that serious attention be given to promoting rural telecom penetration. The CII, he said, was consciously taking up issues critical for industry growth that were not gaining attention otherwise. He said cost-effective energy solutions implemented in some other countries had the full backing of their governments and called upon the DoT to take a proactive stance.
Mr Prakash Ranjalkar, Chief Operating Officer, GTL Ltd, highlighted the four key industry concerns of connectivity, electrification, long-term finance and the uneven treatment meted out to telecom as opposed to ports or roads. He suggested that the tower companies should have a common database and move from an era of competition to one of cooperation so that real economic benefit is derived from sharing infrastructure.
Low Total Cost of Operations solutions were advocated by Mr Yao Weimin, Senior Vice-President, Huawei Communications India Inc. Pvt. Ltd, saying that his company had established a viable business case for rural penetration. Huawei Deputy Director (Marketing) S. Srinivasan detailed the advantages of distributed base stations, IP based radio access platform, spectrally efficient and intelligent power solutions as also multi-mode base stations where the growth potential can be realized at low incremental costs.
Participants at the CII workshop deliberated on standardization of tower construction, land acquisition, energy, right of way, administrative and policy issues, and taxation and fiscal incentives so as to firm up points of discussion with policy makers and DoT officials.
