Trai urges cell firms to share rural backbone

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has urged telecom operators to share infrastructure in rural areas to cut down costs.

Trai is also coming out with a consultation paper on the issue of number portability, which will allow subscribers to change the operator while retaining the number.

Speaking at the 6th telecom summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries, Rajinder Singh, advisor (mobile), Trai said, "In order to increase teledensity in the country we have suggested that the operators can divide the area of operation where it is unviable, to offer services in such a way that they share infrastructure."

Singh said there were international examples where operators have come to an agreement to ride on each other's network which cuts costs.

"We are convinced that unless roll-out penetrates to rural areas, we cannot achieve the targeted growth rate of 100 million subscribers by 2005 by only focusing on urban subscribers. India's teledensity is only about 7 per cent which means there is a huge potential ," Singh said.

On the issue of number portability, Singh said Trai is having discussions with consultants and studying the practice in different countries.

The paper is expected to be brought out within a month. He said issues pertaining to costs will have to be looked at while deciding on the matter.

He said Trai will issue a consultation paper on full unification across all telecom services, within a week.

Responding to Cellular Operator's Association of India's demand to allow direct intra-circle connectivity, Singh said the issues have been raised in the preliminary consultation paper for unified licence.