What is common to the following countries: Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, and UK?
Telecom deregulation, what else—many Voice&Data readers would say. And they would be absolutely right. In Finland, taking licence for setting up a telecom services business is easier than filing an IT return in India. Singapore is probably the only country in the world that paid compensation to existing service providers to introduce more competition. And in New Zealand, they do not have a telecom regulator!

These countries have not just introduced deregulation but implemented it and of course reaped benefits associated with that.

But why am I repeating a story that is known to the entire telecom fraternity?
Because, I just came across some more commonalties among these countries. They happen to be the most honest countries. In the Global Corruption Report published by Transparency International, where it ranks countries according to what it calls Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Finland ranks No 1 as the least corrupt country, with a score of 9.7 out of a maximum 10. Denmark and New Zealand are at No 2 jointly, followed by Iceland. The next positions are taken up by Singapore, Sweden, Canada, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and UK.

Except for Iceland, whose track record in telecom deregulation I am unaware of, all the other countries have strong track records in liberalizing and deregulating their telecom markets.

Is it a mere coincidence?
I don’t believe.

The level of deregulation, or let me put it the other way, the level of regulation is directly proportional to the extent of corruption in a society. If you see, it is not really a profound observation. It is common sense. Most of the laws in the world are framed to punish the bad. Whether in day-to-day life or in business, the laws are meant to prevent wrongdoing. Isn’t it only natural that they would be more and stringent in places where the possibility of someone doing something wrong is perceived to be more?

Let us now do the inevitable. Let us come to India. Our country ranks No 77 in the CPI index list. It hurts our pride. We may question the survey, the methods, the hidden intention of Transparency International and such organizations. But don’t we all know at our hearts that corruption prevails rampantly in public life? With poor implementation track record, we end up creating laws we believe will take care of all ills. So we usually end up banning everything. With that kind of historical approach, how can we have faster deregulation? We do not trust each other.

This mistrust in each other has crept in so much to our mindset that we have a huge percentage of people who have become permanent non-believers in progress. They cannot digest the fact that we can actually move fast. At every small problem that arises, they would resort to I-told-you-so and proclaim the death of liberalization.

Despite all that, India has progressed quite fast in terms of the telecom industry growth. Except for China, which is a different political set-up, India is one of the fastest growing markets.

I think our policy makers—whether politicians or bureaucrats—have realized the importance of being liberal in policy making.

However, because of this mistrust in each other, we would continue to face problems in implementation. I think our industry should come to terms with this reality. While it is good to keep citing examples of Finland and Sweden in seminars, we should realize that our society is fundamentally different. We cannot be as liberal as they are because of that "mistrust". No telecom minister can do much about it.

Why can’t we try to get rid of that root cause? Why can’t our industry and government work more closely? But before that the different segments within the industry, the different associations within the industry should try to trust each other and work more closely with each other.

The government cannot do much about deregulation beyond a point, which we will soon reach. We should learn to move deregulation fast on its track ourselves. The government will soon be just an ally in progress, not the driver.