He also urged the government to play an active role globally for shaping the standards and certification processes based on the needs of the Indian market for the Code Division Multiple Access technology, as soon India will have the largest CDMA subscriber base globally.
"In the next three years, India will have the largest base of CDMA users worldwide crossing a 100 million subscribers, as against the current 36 million," said Rajan, adding that Auspi, which represents the interests of the CDMA wireless and fixed line operators in India, has been recording compounded annual growth rate at 200 per cent since inception and adds over 1.5 million subscribers each month.
Besides influencing global standards and driving home-grown technology standards in international bodies like International Telecommunication Union, the Wimax Form and others, and reducing taxes and levies to be in tune with other emerging economies such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or China, there are other challenges too.
According to Rajan, the other challenges include, "Making spectrum available and introducing a well-defined spectrum policy, a supportive government regime that encourages innovation akin to that in the IT sector, creation of a level-playing field, where private operators as well as government-controlled telcos are measured with the same yardsticks and have to follow the same rules."
Level-playing field is also required in case of spectrum allocation. "GSM players are being allocated 25 mhz in the first round of bidding in the 2100 frequency band, whereas CDMA players are being offered only 5 mhz in the 450 frequency band, the 2100 frequency band which is not compatible with the global standards and the currently used 800 frequency band, which already has 14-15 carriers using it," said Rajan, while speaking on the sidelines of the Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management's Communiqe 06, X National Telecom Seminar.
Tata Tele to launch in 3 circles
Tata Teleservices will launch its services in three circles, which include Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the North East, by mid 2007, thus establishing its presence across all the circles, said Govind Rajan, director, TTL.
Speaking to the Business Standard, Rajan said, "We are hopeful of getting the licenses for these three circles within the next three months and rolling out our services in these geographies subsequently by the middle of next year."
TTL had applied for the licenses earlier this year, but has not been granted the licenses as it has been unable to comply with the security requirements of the Press Note 5.
