How about inter-connect exchanges?

 In the late ’80s, when Sam Pitroda controlled the reins of Indian telecom, there was constant talk of a new telecom policy. But once V P Singh came to power in early ’90s, Sam fell out of favour and the nation blundered along without a cogent policy. A few years down the line, the irrepressible N Vittal assumed charge of the Telecom Commission, becoming the first IAS officer to assume that role, and kept assuring all that the policy’d be out any day now, till one day, out of sheer exasperation, he told me, “I think I will just say that the new policy is coming on this day, this month, and not add the year to it”. We have come a long way since then. From a tele-density of under 1, it is now nudging 10, and mobiles have outstripped landlines in number. And sure enough, since the exciting Vittal quote, we are now readying the third policy document, whose draft has been around for a while. Like all documents, this one too is being analysed threadbare by interested parties and lobbying is on in right earnest. Let us attempt here, therefore, to look at issues which it addresses cursorily, but which are important nevertheless. The telecom watchdog has recently come out with a study paper on ‘Next Generation Telecom Networks”. The paper begins with an interesting observation: British Telecom is working on a scheme that would route calls from and to mobiles within a building to a fixed network. It is common knowledge that over 60% of mobile calls originate and terminate within a building and if, for the ‘last mile’, the call could travel on fixed line, it would relieve a lot of scarce spectrum. The mobile operators have been clamouring for additional spectrum to fuel the growth in tele-density as it moves towards the targeted 22% by 2025 and 30% by 2030. Additional spectrum is a must for the networks to carry increased traffic. However, it is already difficult and finding more and more spectrum can only get tougher. The way out is to have a dedicated band for in-building use, as has been done in Switzerland, Sweden and the UK. More importantly, it is critical that this spectrum is not allotted to existing operators under any circumstances to prevent it being cornered by a few.

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