Telecom players split over Maran's policies

The telecom industry is divided over the policies of former Communications Minister Dayanadhi Maran, who resigned yesterday.

While GSM operators have supported Maran's achievements, some CDMA operators say he failed to deliver. Meanwhile, the stock of Sun TV, owned by Maran's brother Kalanidhi Maran, fell 4.3 per cent on the news of the resignation.

"He was the first minister who was not pro-CDMA. He set growth targets that looked ridiculous initially but he pushed us and achieved it," said a member of the Cellular Operators' Association of India, the body representing GSM operators.

"He was a GSM favourite, did everything to protect state owned telecom companies and instead of taking decisions on many crucial issues, he just leveraged those made by his predecessors," said a member of the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, which represents GSM players.

His big failure is considered to be the 3G spectrum policy. Last year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended auctioning 3G spectrum allocation and had promised that services would take off in June this year.

However, the Department of Telecommunications has not been able to finalise a policy yet. He was also slow in pushing through additional spectrum on 2G from the Ministry of Defence.

The DoT's suggestion that more players be allowed to launch 3G services was also opposed by operators. The addition of a clause that spectrum on 3G would be reserved for state-owned telecom players has been criticised, too.

Maran publicly pushed for broadband and was instrumental in giving a kick-start to BSNL and MTNL to offer cheap broadband services across the country but he refused a Trai suggestion that the government go in for "unbundling of last-mile connectivity," which could have dramatically improved broadband penetration.

Perhaps his biggest problem was the increasing clash of interest between his position as the minister and as brother of Kalanidhi Maran, who owns Sun TV (the largest TV and cable company in south India), which many allege he supported.

His critics say it was his ministry which was responsible for frequency allocation for direct-to-home operators and approvals for teleports to TV companies.