Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

Govt’s gain is sometimes common man’s loss. The scam tainted 2G spectrum on a fresh bidding having ended at a whopping Rs 1.1 lakh crore gain for the govt may lead to an increase in call rates by Rs 1.3 paise a minute. However, as per news report by The Economic Times, TRAI (<keyword id="30356" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telecom-Regulatory-Authority-of-India">Telecom Regulatory Authority of India</keyword>) chairman <keyword id="155492" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Rahul-Khullar">Rahul Khullar</keyword> has claimed that the hike in call rate will be just 6-7 paise a minute as the government didn’t consider the cost of capital deployed by the telcos while making its calculations. Although, the customers might not feel the heat directly as the increase in tariff would be spread over some years. 
 
Khullar's comments come almost two weeks after a bitterly fought auction of 2G and 3G airwaves ended, netting the government a record Rs 1.1 lakh crore. The starting prices for the 2G bands of 800 MHz and 900 MHz set by the government were 17% and 23% higher than what TRAI had recommended. 
 
A brutal fight for the 900 MHz and 800 MHz bands saw their respective bid levels surge 93% and 77% over the base prices, driving up the booty for the Centre. 
 
Khullar told the ET that operators were forced to bid aggressively just to survive and for not releasing adequate spectrum, which along with the paucity of towers was at the heart of the current poor quality of voice and data services. 
 While the govt has earned a handsome amount, the high costs will crimp <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> on rolling out new networks or even upgrading existing networks; and thus, hurting call and data services. 
 
(Image: Reuters)

Pay more for phone calls in India now. Here’s why

NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator Rahul Khullar has faulted the Centre’s Digital India initiative for lacking specifics, especially on the critical aspect of content development, and called the 2019 deadline to implement the project “ambitious”. “Is it possible to get a birth or a death certificate online in Delhi? If not, what sorts of applications are we really talking about? A lot more thinking and resources must be devoted to flesh out these applications instead of simply calling them e-health or e-education,” Khullar, <keyword id="6364480" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Chairman">chairman</keyword> of the <keyword id="30356" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telecom-Regulatory-Authority-of-India">Telecom Regulatory Authority of India</keyword> (TRAI), said in an interview. 
 
If the government doesn’t put more thought into content, the private sector, which has raced ahead in developing applications, will in all likelihood “end up being leaders in delivering content to end-consumers” using the government’s broadband network, he said. 
 
The Rs1.13 lakh-crore Digital India initiative aims to deliver government services to the common man mainly through applications on mobile phones. The initial announcements, which came after the Cabinet ratified the project last week, spoke about the government delivering health, education, judicial, banking and other social services over a mobile device, but didn’t specify who will be responsible for developing content for the applications on various services. 
 
Khullar said just announcing a plan wasn’t enough as it wasn’t an infrastructure project like a Bhakra Nangal Dam for which a team of engineers and architects could draw up a blueprint and execute a plan. “The government needs to set up expert panels across areas of education, medicine, public services, and in whichever field it wants to deliver content. This will have to be a wide-ranging consultative process, without that quality of applications will be in doubt. That, in turn, will affect actual pickup of the service by the end consumer,” Khullar said. Also, the content has to be in multiple languages to ensure wide adoption. 
 Khullar’s comments come just over a week after Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> spoke about his vision of a digitally connected India through the Digital India initiative, while delivering his maiden Independence Day speech at Red Fort. 
 
The TRAI chairman doubted if the government will be able to meet the 2019 timeline, given that backbone for the venture – the National Optic Fibre Network project – is running over three years behind schedule, since being launched under the previous UPA-II government. 
 
“There are legacy issues pertaining to infrastructure rollout for digitally connecting the country. Moreover, there is a challenging task of devising the relevant content to be delivered in terms of e-governance. Given the mammoth task, I think it (2019) is an ambitious target,” he said. “Nevertheless, at least if the government does put its mind to the issue, it one of readying the e-governance content will be more difficult.” 
 
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	&#xa0;</div>
Only 8% of the 1.8 lakh kilometres of optic fibre ordered has been delivered so far, Khullar said. Of the 6 lakh km of planned ducting, only 2,000 km has been done, while the actual cable pulled is just 250 km, or about 0.05% of the target. 
 
Khullar said Trai will next month float a consultation paper on broadband to find ways to address severe delays in laying down the fibre and discuss alternative options for lowering broadband costs. 
 <keyword id="46149" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Telecom-minister">Telecom Minister</keyword> Ravi Shankar Prasad has recently admitted to ET that the optic-fibre project had seen virtually “no progress” for the past three years. But with the current focus on Digital India, which is being monitored by the prime minister himself, the project will meet all its deadlines henceforth, he said. Prasad said the government will continue to implement the project through public sector units Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Power Grid Corporation and RailTel. 
 
Khullar was of the view that the private sector should be involved both in the optic-fibre rollout as well as in designing content. “Involvement of private players could significantly reduce the costs of the entire project, thereby lowering final tariffs,” he said. 
 
Digital India will be built around nine pillars of broadband highways, providing universal access to phones. It seeks to completely substitute imported electronic equipment through domestically manufactured ones, focus on IT literacy, public Internet access programmes, e-governance, electronic delivery of services and early harvest programmes. can easily achieve the first leg of laying optic fibre in about two years. The second

Government Must Focus On Content Development; Digital India Plan Lacks Specifics: Rahul Khullar, TRAI Chairman

NEW DELHI: <keyword id="30356" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Telecom-Regulatory-Authority-of-India">Telecom Regulatory Authority of India</keyword> Chairman <keyword id="155492" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rahul-Khullar">Rahul Khullar</keyword> sees mobile call rates rising by 8-9% over the year as phone companies weed out freebies. 
 
He also said in an interview with ET that the government should hasten the opening up of spectrum for high-speed access and that the new M&amp;A norms were too stringent and would inhibit much-needed consolidation in telecom. 
 
Khullar said though headline tariffs were currently at Rs 1.2 per minute, the net revenue earned by the industry — or realisation rates — were as low as 44-45 paise. “So, what you should be ready to see is some marginal rise in the effective call rates. You won’t really feel the pinch of the tariff hike because what operators are really doing is clawing back the freebies,” Khullar said. 
 
This means subscribers could find free SMSes and talktime offered by operators steadily declining. 
 
Khullar, however, warned that any move to increase headline tariffs won’t go down too well. “What we don’t expect is a rise in the headline tariffs. In case there is a rise in the headline tariffs, the authority will surely look into the matter and, depending upon the case, might intervene,” the chairman said. The regulator has a stated policy of ‘forbearance’ on tariffs. 
 Referring to the quarterly results of <keyword id="6354287" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharti-Airtel">Bharti Airtel</keyword> and <keyword id="6354924" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Idea-Cellular">Idea Cellular</keyword>, Khullar said there were ample signs that growth was returning to the sector but warned that to keep the momentum going, the government should soon put in place a clear pro-industry policy on the most critical issues of spectrum sharing, trading, auction and overall consolidation. 
 
Khullar urged the telecom department to move faster on making more spectrum available. 
 
He said the government’s inability to increase the availability of airwaves couldn’t be explained, especially on 3G spectrum. “Four years have lapsed from the time of 3G auctions, no one could get it across the country in 2010 auctions owing to shortage of airwaves and the government further also proscribed people from sharing it,” he said. 
 
Khullar said availability of airwaves was critical for the industry. 
 
“The next big concern for the industry is scarcity of spectrum, fragmented nature and overall availability of spectrum, leave aside problems of contiguity which are huge, particularly in 800, 900 and 1800 (Mhz). So DoT should notify the spectrum trading and sharing guidelines and start the market-driven process for consolidation. While it may result in a shakeout in the industry, whatever little spectrum is available, fragmentations will end. 
 
If the government can’t release any more 3G spectrum, then DoT must find a way out through consultation and dialogue with the industry, Khullar said. 
 
At least 2100 Mhz should be put up on auction immediately and if you can’t then devise rules permitting sharing of 3G spectrum and charge them for it,” he said. In such a scenario, the government must allow the operators to share whatever airwaves they have and pay a flat charge to the government, he said. 
 
He indicated that getting DoT to change its way of thinking has taken some effort. 
 
“When I joined here two years ago, all this was a taboo, sharing, trading etc. It has taken huge effort to push the department in the direction of these changes.” 
 
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	&#xa0;</div>
The Trai chairman allowed that various considerations had complicated matters for DoT in the past two years or so. “Now there is a new telecom secretary. To be fair to them, they need to be given some time.” 
 Operators are unhappy with telecom department’s new mergers and acquisitions rules. The cap of 50% on the <keyword id="34527" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="market-share">market share</keyword> of the combined entity and the Cabinet decision that a buyer must pay a market price for spectrum bought if it was not purchased by the seller through auctions will discourage consolidation, critics have said. 
 Saying that the cap could certainly be eased, Khullar said, “This bug of increasing competition which first led to 12-14 operators in a circle and now has led to this situation. All over the world there are about threefour operators. In US, <keyword id="28808" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="ATT">AT&amp;T</keyword> and Verizon and even in Germany there are basically two main operators.” The cap currently prohibits any of the three large operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular from consolidating. 
 
On operators being asked to pay market price, Khullar said the government needed to incentivise exit and entry from the market. “If the cost of consolidation is letting an operator accumulate a premium on spectrum, it might be a small cost to pay for consolidation,” he said, adding that he was not making a case for the entire windfall gain to accumulate to operators. “But suppose an operator can buy it at 80% of the market price, then there is still some incentive for both the operators to enter into the deal.” 
 
The regulator recently issued its recommendations on sharing of airwaves, which though more liberal than those of the telecom department, still fell short of industry expectations. “Only certain things are within my purview,” Khullar said. “DoT as licensor has stipulated ceilings on spectrum holding of 25% and 50% and as a regulator I can’t change these.” 
 
Trai said in its recommendations that while sharing airwaves only half of each operator’s holding must be counted while calculating the respective caps. Explaining how he had to balance various interests, including the stated public policy, Khullar said, “If I had relaxed the caps then all the small players with 5%, 10% market share would say that this was done to ensure the GSM lobby drives all competition out.” 
 
Interestingly, while the regulator did not permit inter-band sharing of airwaves, the recommendations categorically said the regulator reserves the right to revisit this issue of permitting inter-band sharing in the future. Industry experts said the issue will need to be revisited once the regulator begins to work on the mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) policy. 
 “The problem in permitting interband sharing is that this runs counter to the stated government policy on intra-circle roaming arrangements. <keyword id="46907" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance-communications">Reliance Communications</keyword>, Aircel and in some cases even one of the top three operators (Airtel, Vodafone, Idea) is affected by this policy,” he added.

Mobile Tariffs To Pinch You Hard As Trai May Raise Call Rates By 8-9%

The debate on <keyword id="6391709" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Net-neutrality">Net Neutrality</keyword> is picking up heat. While Net Neutrality supporters have already declared a war against <keyword id="6356988" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="TRAI">TRAI</keyword> and <keyword id="6379816" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Telecom-operators">telecom operators</keyword>, we haven’t yet heard much from the Indian government on the issue—except for the fact that they (Indian government and TRAI) are planning to come up with a law on Net Neutrality, which would define the do’s and don’ts. 
 Though we really can’t say what those do’s and don’ts would be and to what extent they would restrict our freedom on the Web, but it is heartening to know that there are people like <keyword id="4032986" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rajeev-Chandrashekhar">Rajeev Chandrashekhar</keyword> who are raising their voice in the Parliament and are asking for some bold steps in favour of Net Neutrality. 
 
Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who is currently serving his second term as an independent member of the Rajya Sabha, has particularly been reiterating that TRAI must come clean about corporate rivalry they mentioned in their recent 118 page consultation document. And he has sent across the same message in his recent letter to Rahul Khullar, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. In this letter dated 23rd April 2015, he has challenged the 118 page consultation document submitted by TRAI and called it disappointing. He cites, “I have gone through your 118 page consultation document and regrettably have noted, that this consultation paper lacks the promised balance and is therefore deeply disappointing. Arguably instead, the paper betrays a strong bias towards telecom operators from telecom operators from the questions framed for the consultation.” 
 
In his letter, he also strongly objected TRAI’s attempt to seek regulatory or public policy protection to perpetuate a legacy business model of telcos. He said, “I appreciate that investments and investor sentiment are critical to developing both national infrastructure on which the current and future Internet and Internet accsees network can operate. But, I firmly reject the notion that consumer interests and core character of an open and free Internet have to be sacrificed to maximize the business interests of Telcos and Internet Access Providers, which seems to be the premise of the TRAI consultation paper.” 
 
You can read the complete letter <a href="rajeev.in/rajeev_writes/Regulatory_Framework/Letter_to_Rahul_Khullar_TRAI_Apr232015.pdf">here.</a>

You Searched For "Rahul Khullar" and got 4 results

Pay more for phone calls in India now. Here’s why

BI India Bureau

Government Must Focus On Content Development; Digital India Plan Lacks Specifics: Rahul Khullar, TRAI Chairman

Economic Times

Mobile Tariffs To Pinch You Hard As Trai May Raise Call Rates By 8-9%

Economic Times

TRAI’s Paper on Net Neutrality has a strong bias towards telecom operators: Rajeev Chandrashekhar

Richa Sharma

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides