Rejoice, the draft of the New Telecom Policy in India has some key features giving a host of new advantages in the consumers stride, what is new with the New Telecom Policy of India 2011? Well, we shall get to it below, but have a look at the current telecom policy of India, which has been in place since 1999, it’s strange how we are in the 12th year with the current policy and no one until now, thought about upgrading it, the old one according to us is completely obsolete and doesn’t qualify to be in the current market, mind you the new policy is still under drafting mode and the implementation in December maybe delayed.
Here are some important points from the Telecom Policy 2011 draft for you
1. Roaming Charges to be Abolished, The distinction between local and STD calls would vanish, as the policy aims at a ‘one-nation-one-licence’ regime.
2.Mobile Number Portability, which is currently restricted to a circle-level basis, to be updated to allow consumers to retain their mobile numbers when they move to a new city or any location in the country without having to pay ‘roaming charges’.
3. Broadband speeds to be revised from 256kbps to 512 kbps, further to 2 Mbps by 2015, 100 Mbps by 2020.
4. Powerful grievance addressing mechanisms to be setup.
Some more in-depth point that are being considered in the draft
- Flexible Spectrum Allocation
- Allowing spectrum pooling, sharing and trading
- Setup and exit policy for current service providers
- Regulate value added Services
- Telecom operators would not require separate licences for operations in various parts of the country and a single licence would suffice.
- The Policy, also aims to provide on demand broadband for all citizens and increase rural teledensity to 100% by 2020.
The DNetWorks Team