Every few years the battle for Telecom services in India takes the center stage, involves PMO, hectic lobbying and then knocking the doors of justice and after a while settling on something that will move the business forward. It is high time that they settle things out maybe by “Auctioning” the spectrum rather than favoring COAI or Ambani company.
When Reliance entered the telecom market, they gained an easy entry by greasing the palms of then Telecom Minister, Pramod Mahajan. While Maran was the Telecom Minister, he mostly ruled in favor of existing COAI players. Tata’s were at the fore front in the war against Maran, but later we learnt that Maran’s brother wanted stake in Tata Sky DTH which Ratan denied 🙂
This time around the magic stick is in Anil Ambani’s hand. It is evident from this article how Reliance is being favored by Mr. A.Raja. Anil Ambani broke his silence today and said,
The Cellular Operators Association of India, or COAI, action is not representative of the Indian mobile industry. There are eight or nine players, who operate on the mobility platform.
Initially, five companies out of nine took the matter to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, or TDSAT. I believe two of them have already withdrawn from the case and only three are left in this matter. So, clearly we have disassociated; being a member of COAI and a GSM operator in eight circles.
Others have also realized that this was an unwarranted, unnecessary and misguided action by the COAI, against the future of competition and the future of the consumer.
OK. Don’t go by the flamboyant Anil Ambani’s words and numbers. COAI is not representative of the Indian mobile industry. This was w.r.t the appeal they have filed in TDSAT. I beg to differ from what Mr. Anil Ambani says. If you look at the latest statistics, current COAI petitioners [Bharti + Vodafone + Idea Cellular] represent 51% of wireless users in India. I believe two of them have already withdrawn from the case and only three are left in this matter. Aircel withdrew from the petition after being assured of spectrum. Look at this statement of Mr. Ambani, this was an unwarranted, unnecessary and misguided action by the COAI, against the future of competition and the future of the consumer. Good Grief!!! Reliance Communications and Tata Indicom are the only service providers who lock you to a platform. They are the ones discouraging competition and not GSM operators. You can BUY Vodafone’s value for money handset and use Airtel SIM as well. Can you do it with RCom and Tata Indicom ?
Mr. Anil Ambani further added,
When you look at the propaganda by COAI, the reality is something that they do not want to recognize. The reality is that the licenses are technology neutral, they were upheld by TRAI and recommended to the DoT.
OK. One should agree with him on this.
Now coming to Mr. A.Raja’s part. He first sought the help of Law ministry since their were more than 300+ applications for spectrum and all of a sudden he shoots down their suggestions of referring the issue to Group of Ministers 🙂
Lets wait for more development. I strongly feel that a compromise on already allocated spectrum should be arrived at by accepting TRAI recommendations for better usage and all the available spectrum should be auctioned in a transparent manner so that we may have services from AT&T or DLF, who knows ?
Tags: Telecom India, Mobile India, Spectrum, Reliance Airtel Vodafone
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