NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has not only suggested that the National Telecom Policy 2018 should be renamed as the Information and Communication Technologies Technology Policy - 2018 but also the regulator’s own restructuring so it can function as a converged regulator for the ICT (information and communications technology) and broadcasting sector.
TRAI has batted for an “integrated regulation of ICT and broadcasting sector led by economic and social policy goals of the country” suggesting delivery of broadcast services using converged wire line and wireless networks be allowed.
The regulator, in its inputs to the National Telecom Policy 2018 formulation, has also suggested “review of [the] satellite communications (SATCOM) policy” for communication services “keeping in view the international developments” and social and economic needs of the country.
It has advocated simplification of telecom licensing and regulatory frameworks and rationalisation of high taxes and levies by 2019 to attract a whopping USD100 billion in investments into the financially beleaguered telecom industry by calendar year 2022 and as much as USD 60 billion in the next two years itself.
“Digital communication has presented India an opportunity to overcome the impediments posed by deficiencies in its brick and mortar based physical infrastructure and opened doors to new paradigms in all sectors of economy whereby the common man at the bottom of the pyramid is being served much more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost as compared to earlier days,” TRAI stated explaining the rationale behind its suggestion to rename the National telecom Policy 2018 (NTP2018) as the ‘Information and Communication Technology Policy 2018’.
The lengthy submission to the government for consideration, which some broadcast industry observers felt was an attempt to gain more regulatory control over the sector even though a parliamentary panel had suggested a separate broadcast regulator, encompasses a wide range of inputs to NTP 2018.
What’s TRAI’s vision while submitting the inputs to NTP 2018? To develop a competitive, sustainable and investor-friendly ICT market for rollout of state-of-the-art ubiquitous digital communication infrastructure to provide resilient, reliable, affordable, and consumer-friendly products and services to meet local as well as global needs that will transform India's knowledge economy, support inclusive development, foster innovation and stimulate job creation.
TRAI’s recommendations on the vision, mission and objectives for NTP 2018 include the following:
--- Leveraging the cable TV sector and power sector assets (for broadband and related services)
--- Upgrade of cable TV networks for delivery of converged broadcast and broadband services
--- Facilitating development of content delivery networks for improved quality of experience
--- Prescription of a simple and enabling regulatory framework for application service providers in order to promote innovation in application services
--- To fulfill the information and communication needs of individuals, including persons with disabilities, governments, enterprises, and industries with high quality of experience at affordable prices on a sustainable basis
--- To facilitate growth of state-of-the-art, secure and energy-efficient digital communication infrastructure for delivering ubiquitous, resilient, reliable and ultra-high speed connectivity with extremely low latency for objects, machines and devices
--- To stimulate the environment for innovation and entrepreneurial opportunities making India a global centre for research and development, patent-creation, and standardisation in ICT and services
--- To develop indigenous technologies, equipment, platforms and applications ecosystem for providing digital services to local and global markets
--- To establish India as a global hub for cloud computing, content hosting and delivery and data communication systems and services in a net-neutral environment
--- To protect consumers’ interests by increasing awareness and putting in place an effective grievance redressal mechanism, improving quality of experience, ensuring network, communication and data security, encouraging adoption of environment and safety standards for ICT and modernising public safety and emergency communications networks
--- To attract investments by enhancing ease of doing business through simplification of licensing and regulatory frameworks, rationalisation of taxes, levies and related compliances and facilitating availability of resources including spectrum
--- To enable access at affordable prices for wireless broadband services, including through satellite to 90 per cent population by 2022
--- To ensure availability of bandwidth on demand through wire line, including cable TV and optical fibre networks to 30 per cent households by 2020 and 50 per cent households by 2022
--- To provide at least 1 gbps data connectivity to all gram panchayats (village administrations) to enable wireless broadband services to inhabitants by 2022
--- To achieve 900 million broadband subscriptions supporting download speed of 2 mbps, out of that at-least 150 million broadband subscriptions supporting download speed of 20 mbps and 25 million at a download speed of 50 mbps by 2022
--- To achieve ‘unique mobile subscriber density’ of 55 by 2020 and 65 by 2022 by enhancing mobile network coverage to 95 per cent of inhabitants by 2020 and 100 per cent by 2022
--- To deploy 2 million public WLAN, including Wi-Fi hotspots in the country by 2020 and 5 million by 2022
--- To leapfrog India into the top-50 nations in the ICT Development Index (IDI), released by ITU every year, by 2022
--- To enable access for connecting to 1 billion IoT/ M2M sensors/ devices by 2020 and 5 billion by 2022
--- To attract an investment equivalent to USD 60 billion in the communication sector by 2020 and USD 100 billion by 2022
--- To become net positive in international trade of communication systems and services by 2022
--- To put in place an online platform for all government to business (G2B) activities, including spectrum and licence-related information, applications, clearances, compliances and payments by 2019
--- To simplify licencing and regulatory frameworks and rationalise taxes, levies and related compliances by 2019
--- To put in place a flexible, robust data protection regime powered by a strong encryption policy by 2019
--- To establish a policy framework for facilitating setting up of data centers by 2019
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