'India not a tech guinea pig'

Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, wants India to accept market-driven technologies.

The Union minister of communications and information technology, Dayanidhi Maran, is a very happy man with IT and telecom developments over the last two weeks in India and abroad.

The first was the Nasscom event here where it was categorically heralded that the Indian IT and ITeS (IT-enabled services) sector is expected to touch anywhere between $60-75 billion by 2010.

Second was the 3GSM event in Barcelona, Spain. Talking to a relaxed Maran in Barcelona last week, one could see his excitement with India being on the world map as far as mobile growth is concerned "� the number has crossed the 150 million mark and is expected to touch 250 million by end 2007, growing at an unrivalled pace of 6-7 million per month.

He was also bullish about the Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) programme promoted by the GSM Association at the 3GSM World Congress 2007.

"The MMT project is particularly relevant and important for India which is the largest recipient of international remittances from about 20 to 25 million Indians working across 130 countries. The World Bank has estimated that in 2005 Indian expatriates remitted over $22 billion back home. Therefore, remitting funds needs to be simple and quick," he said.

When asked about developments in the 3G and 4G (read WiMax here) space in the country, Maran was measured about his statements.

"India should not be a guinea pig for technologies," he asserted, adding: "The government is technology-neutral. We will go by market-driven technologies." And while he remained non-commital about the exact dates, he said the 3G policy regarding allocation of spectrum would be announced soon.

Maran reiterated the need for "sharing" towers to get rid of 'dark spots' (places where calls drop or get disconnected, not because of service providers but due to lack of towers since operators do not have permission from the likes of the Defence department or Central Public Works Department to put up towers in these areas).

"We have identified 93 spots in Delhi to date and have made it mandatory for sharing of towers. Next in line is Mumbai and the rest of cities will follow," said Maran.

Infrastructure-sharing between cellphone operators was kicked-off in July last year. Under the infrastructure sharing scheme (called MOST or Mobile Operators' Shared Towers), three to seven mobile operators would be able to co-locate their antennae on a single tower. Currently, around 70,000 cell towers cater to the over 150 million mobile subscribers in the country.

At this rate, the industry will need 140,000 towers for 200 million mobile subscribers by the end of 2007; and 350,000 towers for 500 million mobile subscribers by the end of year 2010, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

This entails an investment of Rs 25,000 crore for cellsite deployment. In this context, he added the government plans to clear 45 MHz spectrum over the next three months.

Are there any concern areas? "We are weak on data services and the growth of value-added services(VAS) is slow. Besides we are very wireless-centric. Why are we forgetting copper and optic fibres?" he asked. On the number-portability issue, he was categorical: "First let's cross the 30 per cent (it's around 18 per cent currently) tele-density mark. My current focus is on growth of this sector."

And what did he have to say about the broadband figures (currently about 2 million) being so dismal?

Maran said the government's move to have servers based in India, "will help immensely in increasing broadband penetration". Currently, traffic generated in India terminates in the US. The government expects the broadband figures to touch 9 million by end 2007.