Before the assignment in TRAI, he was the first Secretary, Ministry of
Disinvestment in the Government of India from December, 1999 to February, 2003, and laid down the entire gamut of rules and regulations for privatization. In his earlier assignments in the Ministry of Power from mid- 1994 to December 1999, he assisted the Central Government in laying down the framework for power sector reforms. He has published a large number of papers on privatization, liberalization, power and telecom regulation issues.

Could you share your thoughts about the fast-paced growth of the Indian telecommunication sector? What are the factors that have made India among the fastest growing telecom markets in the world?

The following actions of the Government and the Regulator led to India being the fastest growing telecom market in the world:

• Change over from public sector monopoly to regulation and public -private competition
• Introduction of mobile technology in 1995 through private players
• Setting up of a regulatory structure in 1997, which created a level playing field between public and priregulation.

The Regulator did not interfere in pricing/installments for handsets. The Regulator also did not interfere in lifetime schemes introduced by operators. The steps listed earlier increased the growth in subscriber numbers from a level of 0.2/0.3 million per month to 5 million/month. Tele-density increased by 2% in a 50 year monopoly public sector driven period of 1948-1998. It increased by 2% each year during 2003-2004 and 2004-2005, it would be 3% during 2005-2006 and based on present monthly trends it would be more than 5% in subsequent years.

How did the Indian telecom sector and especially the cellular market take off in such a big way in the past three years or so? What are the possibilities of India migrating to NGN in the near future?

The tariff regime in India used to be cost-based before 2003 when the Regulator disallowed predatory tariffs for all operators on the basis of his calculations. This practice was given up and the tariffs crashed down
due to the challengers announcing very aggressive tariffs to expand their networks. Further, prior to 2003, the Regulator also interfered in handset prices. The permission granted for selling handsets on installments led to a further push in the growth. Prior to 2003, the growth in subscriber numbers used to be 0.2 to 0.3 million per month. This increased to 2 million per month in 2003-2004 and 2004-2005. In 2005, some operators announced long-term and lifetime schemes increasing the numbers to 5 million per month, the highest growth/month in any country of the world.

In India, the incumbent operator and some other main operators have already started migrating to NGN in the core part. The public consultation on various issues pertaining to NGN are on and recommendations for way forward will be finalized soon.

NGN migration in access is likely to take some more time, as it is more costly and cumbersome. Migration in the core is likely to be completed by 2010 but the access migration is likely to be completed by 2015
only.

Will India continue to be the promising telecom market for some more years in terms of penetration and adoption of cellular technologies? Will the Indian marketplace be classified into low-end, midtier and high-end depending on the prices of handsets and given the near 'commoditization' of tariff structures?

What will Indian customers look for and expect in the new generation of phones?

Yes. Today, the mobile network coverage is 35% of population. Still the uncovered population is 65% and hence there is great unmet demand. The target for 2007 is a total of 250 million phones, 180 million of which are likely to be mobile. Mobile tariffs are already commoditized and may go down further.

Customers will aspire for high-speed broadband access in their mobile handsets and hence will need high-end next generation phones like 3G, Blackberry etc.