Only infrastructure won't build Digital India, says Khullar

The government needs to revisit the broadband plans and think of alternatives if it wants to build 'Digital India' ensuring broadband connectivity for all, Rahul Khullar, chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on Thursday.

Khullar was addressing a panel at a programme organised by Ericsson and industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (Coai) here on Thursday.

"This can't be an infrastructure project. Focus on just building the infrastructure is wrong. You need to do much more than this. The entire ecosystem - from applications to services -- needs to be developed. The approach should be more practical and realistic," Khullar said.

Instead of targeting to offer broadband across the country at one go, Khullar said, the government should do it step by step. The regulator is also working on a consultation paper on broadband.

Earlier, Khullar had said that the government entrust more work to the private companies even in building the network infrastructure could be a more cost-effective and efficient way.

Pointing out that spectrum availability is amongst the lowest in India, Khullar said that alternatives like sharing and trading of spectrum and merger and acquisitions (M&A) could solve the issue.

Ulf Pehrsson, Global Head (government & Industry Relations), Ericsson, however has said that the government should look at adopting some global practices, such as harmonised global spectrum: wide, contiguous and in both low and high frequency bands, fair and non-discriminating regulation, among other things.

"India must think long term in terms of laying out its broadband policy so that supply side constraints are managed in such a manner that 600 million broadband subscribers can be serviced by 2020," he added.