Communications in India
Photograph by Argonne National Laboratoryon Flickr.
The New Telecom Policy in communications 1999, the industry heralded several pro consumer initiatives. ADSL providers Communications in India include: Because of the increase in ISPs and the quality of service Qos, It became cheaper to call India from around the world.
The number Entercom Communications of telephones grew leisurely to 980,000 in 1971, 2.15 million in 1981 and 5.07 million in 1991, the year economic reforms were initiated in Communications in India the country. While certain innovative steps were taken from time to time, as for example introduction of the telex service in Mumbai in 1953 and commissioning of the first In 1975, the Department of Telecom (DoT) was separated from P&T. The total investment in the telecom services sector reached Rs.
Users are expected to holding the mobile number with a given provider for at least 90 days, before they decide to move to the other provider. As per news reports, Government of India decided to implement MNP from December 31st, 2009 in Metros & category ‘A’ service areas and by Communications in India March 20th, 2010 in rest of the country. The incumbent telecom operators (BSNL & MTNL) have maintained several telecom training centres at regional, circle and district level. The government threw open the bids to one private company per circle along with government owned DoT per circle.
200,660 crore in Communications in India 2005-06, up from Rs. TATA finally took 25% stake in VSNL. This was a gateway to many foreign investors to get entry into the Indian Telecom Markets.
BSNL alone, has laid optical fibre to 30,000 Telephone Exchanges out of their 36 Exchanges. The dominant players are Airtel, Reliance Infocomm, Vodafone, Idea cellular and BSNL/MTNL.
However doubts have been raised about what it would mean for the poor in the country. It is difficult to ascertain fully the employment potential of the telecom sector but the enormity of the opportunities can be gauged from the fact that there were 3.7 million Public Call Offices in December 2005 up from 2.3 million in December 2004. The value added services (VAS) market within the mobile industry in India has the potential to grow from $500 million in 2006 to a whopping $10 billion by 2009. On landlines, intra circle calls are considered local calls while inter circle are considered long distance calls. In the fixed line arena, BSNL and MTNL are the incumbents in their respective areas of operation and continue to enjoy the dominant service provider status in the domain of fixed line services.
TRAI on July 2009 has recommened raising this limit to 2 Mbps. In addition to landline and mobile phones, some of the companies also provide the WLL service. The mobile tariffs in India have also become lowest in the world.
The telecom services market is regulated by TRAI. Due to this political background it was very difficult to bring about liberalization in telecommunications.
The exchange at Kolkata named Central Exchange was opened at third floor of the building at 7, Council House Street. The telephone was a status symbol rather than being an instrument of utility.
The Government of India corporatised the operations wing of DoT on 01 October 2000 and named it as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). BSNL was created by corporatization of the erstwhile DTS (Department of Telecommunication Services), a government unit responsible for provision of telephony services.
However private operators have now entered the fray, although their focus is largely on the cellular business which is growing rapidly. Telephony Subscribers (Wireless and Landline): 562.21 million (Dec 2009) Cellphones: 525.15 million (Dec 2009) Land Lines: 37.06 million (Dec 2009) Broad Band Subscription: 7.83 million (Dec 2009) Monthly Cellphone Addition: 19.20 million (Dec 2009) Teledensity: 47.89% (Dec 2009) Projected teledensity: 893 million, 64.69% of population by 2012. Government and several private players run local and long distance telephone services.
Currently Government is working to integrate the whole country in one telecom circle. Keeping in mind the viability of providing services in rural areas, an attractive solution appears to be one which offers multiple service facility at low costs.
The competition has forced the landline services to become more efficient. A new mobile connection can be activated with a monthly commitment of US$0.15 only.
The first and largest operator is the state-owned incumbent BSNL, which is also the 7th largest telecom company in the world in terms of its number of subscribers. Competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are one of the cheapest in the world.
BSNL has three national level intitutions, namely Advanced Level Telecom Training Centre(ALTTC) at Ghaziabad, UP; Bharat Ratna Bhim Rao Ambedkar Institute Of Telecom Training at Jabalpur, MP; and National Academy of Telecom Finance and Management. MTNL incorporated Centre for Excellence in Telecom Technology and Management (CETTM) in 2003-04. The country is divided into multiple zones, called circles (roughly along state boundaries).
For cellular service two service providers were allowed per circle and a 15 years license was given to each provider. Subsequently, after the telecommunication policies were revised to allow private operators, companies such as Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Tata Indicom, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Loop Mobile have entered the space.
Recent operators also operate in the 1800 MHz band. Therefore, the history of Indian telecom can be started with the introduction of telegraph. The postal and telecom sectors had a slow and uneasy start in India.
For international calls, you would dial 00 and the country code+area code+number. MTNL is operating in Delhi and Mumbai only and all other parts are covered by BSNL.
Because of all these factors, the service fees finally reduced and the call costs were cut greatly enabling every common middle class family in India to afford a cell phone. In March 2008 the total GSM and CDMA mobile subscriber base in the country was 375 million, which represented a nearly 50% growth when compared with previous year. that do not have International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, because they pose a serious security risk to the country. CETTM is situated at Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai with built area of 4,86,921 sq ft.
For example BSNL controls 79% of fixed line share in the country. On the other hand, in the mobile telephony space, Airtel controls 21.4% subscriber base followed by Reliance with 20.3%, BSNL with 18.6%, Vodafone with 14.7% subscriber base (as per June 2005 data). Airtel and BSNL have launched 8 Mbit/s & Reliance Communication offers 10 Mb/s broadband internet services in selected areas recently . Broadband in India is more expensive as compared to Western Europe/United Kingdom and United States. After economic liberalization in 1992, many private ISPs have entered the market, many with their own local loop and gateway infrastructures.
Some of the notable ones are Aaj Tak (means Till Today, run by the India Today group) and STAR News, CNN-IBN, Times Now, initially run by the NDTV group and their lead anchor, Prannoy Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7, NDTV Profit, NDTV India and NDTV Imagine).New Delhi TeleVision. Here is a reasonably comprehensive List of Indian television stations. In the Next Generation Networks, multiple access networks can connect customers to a core network based on IP technology. The main news channels available were CNN and BBC World.
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allows users to retain their numbers, while shifting to a different service provider provided they follow the guidelines set by TRAI. 86,720 crore in 2005-06 as against Rs.
During all these improvements, the government did face oppositions from ITI, DoT, MTNL, VSNL and other labor unions, but they managed to keep away from all the hurdles. After 1995 the government set up TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) which reduced the interference of Government in deciding tariffs and policy making. Even after independence, growth was extremely slow.
Baring, Member of the Governor General of India s Council declared open the Telephone Exchange in Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. Internet subscriber base has risen to 6.94 million in 2005- 2006.
Construction of 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of telegraph lines connecting Kolkata (Calcutta) and Peshawar in the north along with Agra, Mumbai (Bombay) through Sindwa Ghats, and Chennai in the south, as well as Ootacamund and Bangalore was started in November 1853. The Rao run government instead liberalized the local services, taking the opposite political parties into confidence and assuring foreign involvement in the long distance business after 5 years.
During this period, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi, many public sector organizations were set up like the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) , VSNL and MTNL. He tried his level best for the development of telecom through out this period.
There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. At the end of November 2009, total broadband connections in the country have reached 7.57 million. BSNL, Tata Teleservices, Airtel, Reliance Communications, Sify, MTNL, STPI, Netcom, Railtel, GAILTEL, You Telecom, Spice and Hathway are some of the major ISPs in India.
The mobile services were commercially launched in August 1995 in India. Finally in April 2002, the government decided to cut its stake of 53% to 26% in VSNL and to throw it open for sale to private enterprises.
It would then be futile to differentiate between fixed and mobile networks – both fixed and mobile users will access services through a single core network. Indian telecom networks are not so intensive as developed country’s telecom networks and India s teledensity is low only in rural areas. There are no regulations against ownership of satellite dish antennas, or operation of cable television systems, which led to an explosion of viewership and channels, led by the Star TV group and Zee TV.
In 1851, it was opened for the British East India Company. The Central Telephone Exchange had 93 number of subscribers.
approached the Government of India to establish telephone exchanges in India. The mobile service has seen phenomenal growth since 2000.
In 2008-09, rural India outpaced urban India in mobile growth rate. India s mobile phone market is the fastest growing in the world, with companies adding some 19.1 million new customers added in December 2009. The total number of telephones in the country crossed the 543 million mark on Oct 2009. Telecom in the real sense means transfer of information between two distant points in space. In 1990s the telecom sector was opened up by the Government for private investment as a part of Liberalisation-Privatization-Globalization policy.
The permission was refused on the grounds that the establishment of telephones was a Government monopoly and that the Government itself would undertake the work. However, many ISPs advertise their service as broadband but don t offer the suggested speeds.
As of January 2009, total mobile phone subscribers numbered 362 million, having added 15 million that month alone. India has opted for the use of both the GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code-division multiple access) technologies in the mobile sector. DoT was responsible for telecom services in entire country until 1985 when Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) was carved out of DoT to run the telecom services of Delhi and Mumbai.
Many Indians today, studying or living all around the world, are using calling cards to India to speak with their families back home. Many technological developments took place in this regime but still foreign players were not allowed to participate in the telecommunications business. The demand for telephones was ever increasing.
The proposal of raising the stake of foreign investors from 49% to 74% was rejected by the opposite political party and leftist thinkers. see major operators in India.
670,000 route kilometers (419,000 miles) of optical fibres has been laid in India by the major operators, even in remote areas and the process continues. In 1850, the first experimental electric telegraph Line was started between Kolkata and Diamond Harbor.
and The Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd. They split DoT in two- one policy maker and the other service provider (DTS) which was later renamed as BSNL.
These access networks include fibre optics or coaxial cable networks connected to fixed locations or customers connected through wi-fi as well as to 3G networks connected to mobile users. For calling Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX).
The landline network quality has improved and landline connections are now usually available on demand, even in high density urban areas. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g.
It provides training in telecom switching, transmission, wireless communication, telecom operations and management to corporates and students besides its own internal employees. Other than the governement opearators some private players like Bharti and Reliance have started their own training centres. Mountains · Glaciers · Volcanoes · Valleys · Rivers · Lakes · Desert · Islands · Extreme Points · Waterfalls · Beaches Plains (Gangetic Plains · Eastern coastal · Western coastal) Afghanistan · Armenia1 · Azerbaijan1 · Bahrain · Bangladesh · Bhutan · Brunei · Burma2 · Cambodia · People s Republic of China · Cyprus1 · East Timor3 · Egypt4 · Georgia4 · India · Indonesia · Iran · Iraq · Israel · Japan · Jordan · Kazakhstan4 · North Korea · South Korea · Kuwait · Kyrgyzstan · Laos · Lebanon · Malaysia · Maldives · Mongolia · Nepal · Oman · Pakistan · Philippines · Qatar · Russia4 · Saudi Arabia · Singapore · Sri Lanka · Syria · Tajikistan · Republic of China5 · Thailand · Turkey4 · Turkmenistan · United Arab Emirates · Uzbekistan · Vietnam · Yemen Abkhazia1 · Nagorno-Karabakh · Northern Cyprus · Palestine · South Ossetia1 · Aceh · Adjara1 · Akrotiri and Dhekelia · Altai · British Indian Ocean Territory · Buryatia · Christmas Island · Cocos (Keeling) Islands · Guangxi · Hong Kong · Inner Mongolia · Iraqi Kurdistan · Khakassia · Macau · Nakhchivan · Ningxia · Papua · Sakha Republic · Tibet · Tuva · West Papua · Xinjiang · . When a bill was in parliament a majority vote had to be passed, and such a majority was difficult to obtain, given to the number of parties having different ideologies. Liberalization started in 1981 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed contracts with Alcatel CIT of France to merge with the state owned Telecom Company (ITI), in an effort to set up 5,000,000 lines per year.
Therefore, it became necessary to separate the Government s policy wing from its operations wing. 100 crore .
As a result, in the future, it would be impossible to identify whether the next generation network is a fixed or mobile network and the wireless access broadband would be used both for fixed and mobile services. For home users , the maximum speed for unlimited downloads is 2 Mbit/s , available for USD 60 (roughly , without taxes) per month. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & Hosts: 86,571 (2004) Source: CIA World FactBook Country code (Top-level domain): IN Radio broadcast stations: AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68 (1998) Radios: 116 million (1997) Television terrestrial broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82 stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1 kW of power) (1997) Televisions: 110 million (2006) In India, only the government owned Doordarshan (Door = Distant = Tele, Darshan = Vision) is allowed to broadcast terrestrial television signals.
Out of this 1.35 million were broadband connections. But soon the policy was let down because of political opposition.
International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers. The breakup of wireless subscriber base in India as of December 2009 The list of ten states (including the metros Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in their respective states) with largest subscriber base as of September 2009 Wireless density was calculated using projected population of states from the natural growth rates of 1991-2001 and population of 2001 census. Landline service in India is primarily run by BSNL/MTNL and Reliance Infocomm though there are several other private players too, such as Touchtel and Tata Teleservices. Dr.
The government further reduced license fees for cellular service providers and increased the allowable stake to 74% for foreign companies. Mobile network operators therefore planned to suspend the usage of around 30 million mobile phones (about 8 % of all mobiles in the country) by 30 April.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag.
On this day Major E. The political powers changed in 1999 and the new government under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee was more pro-reforms and introduced better liberalization policies.
The country code for India is 91. Until recently, only the PSU s BSNL and MTNL were allowed to provide Basic Phone Service through copper wires in India. Mobile subscriber additions started picking up.
In 2005 alone additions increased to around 2 million per month in the year 2003-04 and 2004-05. Although mobile telephones followed the New Telecom Policy 1994, growth was tardy in the early years because of the high price of hand sets as well as the high tariff structure of mobile telephones. These circles were divided into category A, B and C depending on the value of the revenue in each circle.
By 1881, the Government changed its earlier decision and a licence was granted to the Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England for opening telephone exchanges at Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai (Madras) and Ahmedabad. In September 2004, the number of mobile phone connections have crossed fixed-line connections.
In the initialwas 16 million, followed by 22 million in 2004, 32 million in 2005 and 65 million in 2006. TRAI has defined broadband as 256 kbit/s or higher.
The Mobile telecommunications system in India is the second largest in the world and it was thrown open to private players in the 1990s. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan.
The number of broadband connections in India have seen a continuous growth since the beginning of 2006. The number of mobile phones added throughout the country in 2003 </ref> The total revenue in the telecom service sector was Rs.
She invited Sam Pitroda a US based NRI to set up a Center for Development of Telematics(C-DOT), however the plan failed due to political reasons. Many private operators, such as Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, Loop Mobile, Airtel, Idea etc., successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market. The Indian government was composed of many factions (parties) which had different ideologies.
The Posts and Telegraphs department occupied a small corner of the Public Works Department, at that time. The DoT opposed this.
The Indian telecommunication industry, with about 525 million mobile phone connections (Dec 2009) For the past decade or so, telecommunication activities have gained momentum in India. A rural network based on the extensive optical fibre network, using Internet Protocol and offering a variety of services and the availability of open platforms for service development, viz.
It initially had one major National channel (DD National) and a Metro channel in some of the larger cities (also known as DD Metro). Satellite/Cable television took off during the first Gulf War with CNN. It used to be much more expensive prior to 2002. The current definition of Broadband in India is speeds of 256 kbit/s.
Fibre network can be easily converted to Next Generation network and then used for delivering multiple services at cheap cost. Number portability: TRAI announced the rules and regulations to be followed for the Mobile Number Portability in their draft release on 23 September 2009. 28 January 1882, is a Red Letter Day in the history of telephone in India.
Efforts have been made from both governmental and non-governmental platforms to enhance the infrastructure. A separate department was opened in 1854 when telegraph facilities were opened to the public. In 1880, two telephone companies namely The Oriental Telephone Company Ltd.
More than a billion people use the internet globally. Under the Bharat Nirman Programme, the Government of India will ensure that 66,822 revenue villages in the country, which have not yet been provided with a Village Public Telephone (VPT), will be connected. Landlines are facing stiff competition from mobile telephones.
The popular meaning of telecom always involves electrical signals and nowadays people exclude postal or any other raw telecommunication methods from its meaning. 178,831 crore in the previous fiscal. Telecommunication is the lifeline of the rapidly growing Information Technology industry.
After March 2000, the government became more liberal in making policies and issuing licenses to private operators. India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band.
71, 674 crore in 2004-2005, registering a growth of 21%. It was during this period that the P.N Rao led government introduced the national telecommunications policy During this period, the World Bank and ITU had advised the Indian Government to liberalize long distance services in order to release the monopoly of the state owned DoT and VSNL; and to enable competition in the long distance carrier business which would help reduce tariff s and better the economy of the country.
the Next Generation Network, appears to be an attractive proposition. The breakup of wireline subscriber base in India as of September 2009 The list of eight states (including the metros Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in their respective states) with largest subscriber base as of September 2009 The total subscriber base for internet in India is 13.54 million.
Domestic business groups wanted the government to privatize VSNL. It is the largest telecom training centre in India and one of the biggest in Asia with a capex plan of over Rs.
Initially restricted to music and entertainment channels, viewership grew, giving rise to several channels in regional languages and many in the national language, Hindi. Bombay also witnessed the opening of Telephone Exchange in 1882. While all the major cities and towns in the country were linked with telephones during the British period, the total number of telephones in 1948 was only around 80,000.
The idea is to help modern telecommunication technologies to serve all segments of India’s culturally diverse society, and to transform it into a country of technologically aware people. A large population, low telephony penetration levels, and a rise in consumers income and spending owing to strong economic growth have helped make India the fastest-growing telecom market in the world. Some of them were willing to throw open the market to foreign players (the centrists) and others wanted the government to regulate infrastructure and restrict the involvement of foreign players.
