Limited mobility is finally a reality. The subject has generated a lot of hype and euphoria but there still remain some grey areas. A plethora of arguments and counter arguments have been made with a majority opining in favour of limited mobility. However the views, particularly of the effected operators, seemed to highlight a stand that suits them best, rather than a comprehensive unbiased analysis.

Two Critical Questions Arise

The first is for the fixed service providers (FSPs)—what kind of revenue model are they are looking at? And, the second for our policy makers and regulators—How long will they manage with adhocism? Today, it is limited mobility. Tomorrow it could be something else that one category of licensed service provider would like to offer that would overlap with another category.

Noted physicist, Elliyahu Goldratt mentioned in his widely acclaimed work—"The Goal", that making money should be the primary goal of any corporate organisation. Anyone claiming otherwise either lacks business acumen or is being hypocritical. Limited mobility has been largely welcomed as a low cost solution to extend penetration of mobile services. If increasing reach is indeed the goal, then the track record exhibited by the Fixed Service Providers (FSP), as far as fixed line telephony is concerned, has left much to be desired. And if the goal is to make money then the revenue model deserves a microscopic look.

FSP have so far roped in big customers from whom quick revenue could be generated with relatively smaller investments. They only had to lay a few kilometers of optic fiber cable and install a switch or two in the business districts and sway away disgruntled MTNL customers by offering better value-added services. No doubt, it was a meticulous business strategy for basic services but they never provided the infrastructure that could cater to individual or SME customers, which is exactly what would be needed to take limited mobility to a large subscriber base. FSP cannot even cross-sell limited mobility to its
existing subscribers, as GSM provides far more value-addition and cost is not the driving factor for corporate subscribers. FSP would need to make large investments in network expansion before they can extend limited mobility to a reasonable subscriber base, rendering their low cost proposition, at Rs 1.20 per 3-minute call un-viable.

Limited mobility is projected to be a fall-out of new technology; however, WLL was inherently capable of providing mobility to the subscribers. So, it is incorrect to view it as a current technological development, except that it is now proposed that the range be enhanced.

From this follows the second question. Would it be unfair for the mobile operators to ask for providing national long distance (NLD) services on the same license, as they too have the technology and the infrastructure to handle inter-circle traffic? Or for any ISP to offer voice or other services because their technology and infrastructure allow this?

The whole issue has also to be viewed holistically, keeping the dynamism of technology in the telecom sector in the right perspective. With technologies like EDGE, UMTS & DWDM around the corner, convergence in voice, data & video would occur the world over and India will have to follow suit by re-deploying the frequency spectrum and making other changes. Subsequently, the overlap in the competence of operators in voice, data and video would be enormous, and each one would feel capable of delivering most of the services. Every time a new value-added service emerges, there would be conflicts that could snowball to encompass ISP and ASP as well. Thus, stop gap decisions of the kind of allowing limited mobility would not present a lasting solution. No country can obviously wait for a proven technology to emerge before carving out policies, but with technologies on the hot anvil and rolling out rather soon, it would be unwise to ignore the writing on the wall.

A uniform telecom license has been much talked about. It can be a panacea provided it is open ended, capable of addressing issues of value-added services arising out of fresh technological developments and promises single window clearance. It must also lay down licensing requirements, revenue sharing formula, universal service obligation, spectrum fees and capital adequacy, for each content type – voice, data or video, together with access technologies – wired or wireless, and backbone infrastructure – optic fiber, cable or satellite. The concept should be of modular licenses, with any combination of content, access and backbone technologies available to the operator and with no restriction on the number of players. This will bring in more transparency and allow operators to pick and choose a combination of services based on their core competence and with a reasonable planning horizon.

Puneet Chopra is a former scientific officer with TIFR