Study of Indian telecom-sector and it s challenges in rural areas

Abstract

All over the world, governments, international agencies, and academics have recognized telecom as an enabling infrastructure allowing the people it connects, to reach out and communicate, seek business, and grow their knowledge. The Indian telecommunication sector is the second largest telecom network with over 400.04million telephone users as on January 2009 (source: TRAI ) however the rural connectivity remained a critical dimension of the massive growth achieved in the recent past and the divide between urban and rural is increasing (only 27.6% of total connections are from rural though it constitutes 70% of population).Though the government of India has taken many initiatives to improve rural connectivity including creation of Universal service obligation Fund (USOF) however the rural connectivity is still very low. In this dissertation an attempt has been made to study and find out what are the shortfalls in the design and implementation of various policies followed by the government of India, study of policies adopted by other countries specially USA and how the rural connectivity can be improved within a fixed time period. The research is mainly based on the Focus Group Discussions and personal interviews with key stakeholders such as Telecom regulatory authority of India(TRAI)- the regulator, Department of Telecom (DoT) the policy maker, Universal service obligation Cell, Various Telecom Service providers ( both private and public sector). Beside this a survey has also been conducted in the rural areas in few districts of U.P., West Bengal and Chhattisgarh to find out the possible factors for early adoption of mobile and also to know the perception of the people in rural areas regarding services being provided by mobile operators. Both the primary and the secondary data have been used for analyzing and supporting the findings.