INDIAN TELECOM HISTORY VOLUME - 1

By TELECOM INDIA DAILY

This presentation covers long journey of Indian Telecom. We have tried our best to include major changes occurred, reforms made and important dates.

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BEGINNING
1851: The sprawling Posts and Telegraphs Department, for instance, occupied a small corner of the public works department, in. Dr. William OShaughnessy pioneered telegraph and telephone in India belonged to the Public Works Department.

1854 :A regular, separate department was opened, when telegraph facilities were thrown open to the public.

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Historical Changes
1854-57 : The Telegraph Department comprised a Superintendent of Telegraphs.

Three Deputy Superintendents at Bombay, Madras and Pegu in Burma, Inspectors at Indore, Agra, Kanpur and Banaras and an operating and maintenance staff . This was the basic structure.

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Historical Changes
Dr. O'Shaughnessy was the first Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs in India and later became the first Director General.

Indo-European Telegraph Department, later known as the Overseas Communications, was administered by a Director-in-Chief whose headquarters was in London. 15th February, 1888 : merged with the Director-General of the Indian Telegraph Department.

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Historical Changes
1914 : World War I, Postal Department and the Telegraph Department were amalgamated under a single Director-General. April, 1925 : The accounts of the Indian Posts and Telegraphs were reconstituted to examine the true fiscal profile of the department. The attempt was to find out the extent to which the department was imposing a burden on the taxpayers.

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Historical Changes
1st April, 1950 : In 1950 the number of Telephone Exchanges absorbed from princely states was 196. The installed capacity of these 196 exchanges was 13,362 lines with 11,296 working connections.

Improve their technical efficiency by replacing obsolete and unserviceable equipment and lending well-qualified and experienced staff.

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FROM P&T TO DoT

P&T DoT
31st December, 1984 : postal, telegraph and telephone services were managed by the Posts and Telegraphs Department till this date. January 1985 :two separate Departments for the Posts and the Telecommunications were created. The accounts of the department, initially, were maintained by the Accountant General of the P&T.

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DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

DoT
The Telecommunication Board consisted of the Secretary Telecommunications, who was the Chairman with Member(Finance), Member (Operations), Member (Development), Member (Personnel) and Member (Technology). 1989 : The Telecom Commission was constituted.

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DoT
The Commission has the DoT Secretary as its Chairman with Member (Services), Member(Technology) and Member (Finance) as its full time members. The Secretary (Finance), Secretary (DoE), Secretary (Industries) and Secretary (Planning Commission) are part time members of the Commission.

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DoT
1986 :Department reorganised the Telecommunication Circles with the Secondary Switching Areas as basic units. This was implemented in a phased manner. Bombay and Delhi Telephones were separated to create the new entity called Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.(MTNL).

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1994

NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

Objectives
Focus : telecommunication for all and telecommunication within the reach of all. This means ensuring the availability of telephone on demand as early as possible. Achieving universal service covering all villages as early as possible i.e. provision of access to all people for certain basic telecom services at affordable and reasonable prices. The defence and security interests of the country will be protected.

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Objectives
The quality of telecom services should be of world standard. Removal of consumer complaints, dispute resolution and public interface will receive special attention providing widest permissible range of services to meet the customer's demand at reasonable prices. Taking into account India's size and development, it is necessary to ensure that India emerges as a major manufacturing base and major exporter of telecom equipment.

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Status--1994
Telephone density was 0.8 per hundred persons as against the world average of 10 per hundred persons. Lower than China (1.7), Pakistan (2), Malaysia (13). 8 million lines with a waiting list of about 2.5 million. Nearly 1.4 lakh villages, out of a total of 5,76,490 villages in the country, are covered by telephone services. There are more than 1 lakh public call offices in the urban areas.

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Revised Targets
Telephone should be available on demand by 1997. All villages should be covered by 1997. Urban areas- PCO for every 500 persons by 1997. All value-added services available internationally should be introduced in India well within the VIII Plan period, preferably by 1996.

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GSM
August, 1995 : GSM entered India. Historic first cell phone-call was made by MobileNetjoint venture between Telstra (Australia) & B.K. Modi group.

Mobile revolution began in Kolkata. Handset costs-40,000 & Call tariff- 17 rs/min.

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TELECOM REGULATORY AUTHORITY OF INDIA

TRAI
January 1997 : TRAI was formed. To provide an effective regulatory framework and adequate safeguards to ensure fair competition and protection of consumer interests. 1998 : First tariff order issued in thus reforms effective from 1998.

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Role of TRAI
Section 13 of the TRAI Act gives adequate powers to TRAI to issue directions to service providers. Under Section 14 of the Act, the TRAI has full adjudicatory powers to resolve disputes between service providers. TRAI will be assigned the arbitration function for resolution of disputes between Government (in its role as licensor) and any licensee.

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Teledensity -1998

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1999

NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

Objectives
Availability of affordable and effective communications for the citizens- core vision and goal of the telecom policy. Balance between universal service to all uncovered areas, including the rural areas, and high-level services capable of meeting the needs of the countrys economy. Development of telecommunication facilities in remote, hilly and tribal areas of the country.
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Objectives
Create a modern and efficient telecommunications infrastructure taking into account the convergence of IT, media, telecom and consumer electronics and thereby propel India into becoming an IT superpower. Convert PCOs, wherever justified, into Public Teleinfo centres having multimedia capability like ISDN services, remote database access, government and community information systems etc.

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Objectives
Transform in a time bound manner, the telecommunications sector to a greater competitive environment in both urban and rural areas providing equal opportunities and level playing field for all players. Strengthen research and development efforts in the country and provide an impetus to build world-class manufacturing capabilities.

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Objectives
Achieve efficiency and transparency in spectrum management. Protect the defence & security interests of the country. Enable Indian Telecom Companies to become truly global players.

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Targets
Telephone on demand by the year 2002. Teledensity of 7 by the year 2005 and 15 by the year 2010. Development of telecom in rural areas, more affordable, suitable tariff structure and making rural communication mandatory for all fixed service providers. Increase rural teledensity from the current level of 0.4 to 4 by the year 2010, reliable transmission media in all rural areas.
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Targets
Achieve telecom coverage of all villages in the country and provide reliable media to all exchanges by the year 2002. Internet access to all district head quarters by the year 2000. High speed data and multimedia capability using technologies including ISDN to all towns with a population greater than 2 lac by the year 2002.
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Impact of NTP-99 on Mobile

March 2005

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BSNL

BSNL
1st October 2000 :Department created BSNL, a new entity to operate services in different parts of the country as a public sector unit. Grown to a network of over 45 million lines covering 5000 towns & over 35 million telephone connections.

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Telecom Services Market

% C ontribution to Telecom S ervice R evenue FY 2003

Wireline

12%

3%
GSm CDMA

18% 2% 19%

46%
Domestic Long Distance International Long Distance Data

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Switching Infrastructure
Other Private Operators 16%

MTNL 10%

74% BSNL

Switching capacity of fixed network

60 million
As on September 2003

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Transmission Infrastructure

Optical fibre base 0.5 million route km

March 2005

Microwave base 0.15 million route km

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India - An attractive and lucrative destination

S e c to rw is e in flo w o f T e le c o m F D I in %
0% 0% 4% B a s ic T e le p h o n e S e rv ic e C e llu la r M o b ile T ele p h o n e S e rv ic e 24% R a d io P a g in g S e rv ic e E -M a il S e rv ic e V S A T S e rv ic e C a b le T V N e tw o rk + In te rn e t S a te llite T e lep h o n e S e rv ic e 51% 1% 1% 0% 2% 1% 0% 16% O th e r V alu e A d d e d S e rv ic e s A u to m a tic R o u te R a d io T ru n k in g S e rv ic e M a n u fa c tu rin g & C o n s u lta n c y H o ld in g C o m p an ie s

(1991-2003) FDI in Telecom 20% of total FDI

March 2005

US$ 2 billion related to telecom

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2004

BROADBAND POLICY

Premeable
Recognising the potential of ubiquitous Broadband service in growth of GDP and enhancement in quality of life through societal applications including tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment as well as employment generation by way of high speed access to information and web-based communication. High speed Internet access at 128 kbps is considered as Broadband.

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Broadband Connectivity
An always-on data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 256 kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service provider. The interactive services will exclude any services for which a separate licence is specifically required, for example, real-time voice transmission, except to the extent that it is presently permitted under ISP licence with Internet Telephony.

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Broadband Subscribers
Year Ending 2005 2007 2010 Internet Subscribers 6 million 18 million 40 million Broadband Subscribers 3 million 9 million 20 million

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Technology Options
Optical Fibre Technologies: 4.5 lakh route kms. of optical fibre laid by BSNL / MTNL and more than 1 lakh route kms laid by private operators. Digital Subscriber Lines(DSL) on copper loop : Recognising that last mile copper loop is not a bottleneck facility for broadband services, access providers shall be free to enter into mutually agreed commercial arrangements for utilization of available copper loop for expansion of broadband services.

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Technology Options
40 million copper loops in the country available with BSNL and MTNL out of which 14 million loops are in rural areas. Management of BSNL and MTNL has decided to provide 1.5 million connections by the end of 2005. Cable TV Network: can be used as franchisee network.

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Technology Options
Of the service provider for provisioning Broadband services. Satellite Media Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT) and Direct-to-Home(DTH): services would be encouraged for penetration of Broadband and Internet services with the added advantage to serve remote and inaccessible areas.

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Technology Options
Terrestrial Wireless: 5.15-5.35 GHz band shall be delicensed for the indoor use of low power Wi-Fi systems. For outdoor use, the band 5.25-5.35 GHz shall be de-licensed in consultation with DoS and delicensing in the band 5.15-5.25 GHz would be considered after the process of vacation. Alternative spectrum bands which are not in high usage and could be deployed for Broadband services.

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Urban & Rural Tele-density

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Mobile Subscriber base

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Fixed Subscribers Base

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PSUs Operators Subscribers Base

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PSUs Operators Subscribers base

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Private Operators Subscribers base

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Private Operators Subscribers base

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Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

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Revenue

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Tele-density Growth

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Tele-density Growth

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2006 & 2007

 2006 was the year of dynamic growth for Telecom Sector. New policies, rules, faces popped in and the market saw a huge growth in terms of subscriber additions. India surpassed China in monthly additions and teledensity crossed the figure of 20. 2007 took from where 2006 ended and still the growth is on as July 2007 was the highest subscriber addition in world 7.34 million. This we will include in our next part of Indian Telecom History Volume - 2.

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Courtesy
DOT TRAI VSNL MTNL & BSNL COAI
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THANK YOU

TELECOM INDIA DAILY

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