Duopoly Is Harmful, Competition Key Across Sectors: Jyotiraditya Scindia

Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday said duopoly is not good and there must be competition in every sector.

Speaking at an event of Broadband India Forum, the minister said there is intense competition in the country among internet service providers and the government will issue rules for delicensing 6 gigahertz spectrum before August 15 that will be used for wifi services and bridging of digital divide.

"Our job is to provide as many avenues as possible and within each vertical as well, provide intense competition. It's not good enough having a duopoly of one carrier or two carriers," Scindia said.

At present, the Indian telecom sector is being dominated by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio who are actively providing 4G and 5G services.

Debt-ridden Vodafone Idea has expressed apprehension on its survival in a petition filed before the Supreme Court.

State-run BSNL is yet to roll out 4G and 5G services at a pan-India level.

Scinda said the country has fiber technology for broadband, wifi and soon there will be satellite services.

"(We) Must have competition in every sector," Scindia said.

He said spectrum will be soon assigned to satellite players on an administrative basis for satellite communications services.

The minister did not disclose the timeline for the allocation of spectrum for satcom services.

Scindia said Moore's law should play in telecom economics as well as where prices should fall with rise in volumes.

He said the government is company or technology agnostic and its job is to be customer-centric.

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"Our responsibility is towards 1.4 billion of our country's brothers and sisters. Our job is to provide every opportunity to them. Our job is to provide every technology to them. Our job is to make sure that Moore's law operates in the economic sphere. That is as volume rises, prices fall," the minister said.

He said earlier 1 GB mobile data used to cost Rs 287 which has now come down to Rs 9 per GB equal to about 11 cents while the world average cost per GB is USD 2.49.

"India operates at 5 per cent of the world's cost. This is the democratisation of technology. We used to be charged 16 rupees a minute (for a call). Ten years ago we were charged 50 paise a minute. Today we are charged 0.03 paise a minute. I can't even convert that into cents," the minister said.

He also appealed to device makers and chip companies to produce devices at nominal cost to allow our citizens to connect with broadband.

"We cannot allow devices to become the new digital divide in our country. If you look at the three components of this space -- terrestrial fiber, satellite connectivity, and devices at nominal cost -- all three together represent the bouquet that presents the opportunity for our countrymen and women to power forward and innovate their lives," the minister said.

Earlier in the event, former telecom regulator Trai Chairman RS Sharma said there is almost a duopoly in the telecom sector with just two active service providers and there is need to provide more routes for giving broadband access to consumers at affordable rates.

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