More spectrum = clear talk

Congestion has hampered communication for long. A solution is just around the corner, says Nivedita Mookerji.

Irritating call drops are a familiar phenomenon for India's 90 million cellphone subscribers. That'll soon be a thing of the past, claim representatives of the government and telecom industry.

While there are many reasons for the poor quality of mobile calls, spectrum deficiency is one of them.

Just a few days ago, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary J S Sarma, announced that the defence ministry is expected to vacate around 45 mega hertz of spectrum within two months. That spectrum will be allocated to wireless service providers like Bharti, Hutch, Idea, Reliance and Tata Teleservices.

To make this possible, the government is investing Rs 1,000 crore in an alternate strategy - shifting the wireless operations of the defence services to spectrum-efficient optical fibre cable. The move is likely to reduce the level of telecom network congestion for the next two to three years, said Sarma.

Every month, the mobile subscriber base is growing by 4 million to 5 million, resulting in greater demand for spectrum.

But industry analysts argue that spectrum is just one part of the story. The use of alternate technology, investment in robust networks and infrastructure-sharing between service providers are among the other measures that global players are focusing on to meet the industry demands.

The bone of contention for long has been the infrastructure-sharing between telecom networks.

Private players argued that the incumbents like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, refused to share its widespread nationwide network. As a result, in many cases, subscribers of private mobile services suffered when they travelled to most far-flung places in the country.

However, recently the government and the industry discussed infrastructure-sharing mechanisms. It will go on stream first in Delhi this month, followed by Mumbai and the other metros. A few weeks ago, even prime minister Manmohan Singh said, that the government was addressing the issue of releasing additional spectrum to commercial telecom operators. "Growth of this dynamic sector must not be constrained by the shortage of this vital resource," the PM said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), meanwhile, has been consistently stressing on the alarming levels of mobile network congestion.

In one of its reports, Trai pointed out that the network congestion level had increased from the prescribed 0.5% to even 80% and 90% in many cases.

An 80% congestion suggested that 80 out of 100 calls were not connecting because of congestion. But repeated redialling led to network collapse.

Despite all the spectrum buzz, industry insiders say only continuous investments in infrastructure can ensure service quality.

Telecom operators are understood to have spent around $28 million in 2005, to check congestion and improve mobile coverage. The spend is likely to increase to $40 million this year.

"For a market of this size, Indian operators need to spend at least $100 million to $200 million a year to improve the network coverage," said Simon Yeung, chief operating and strategy officer of Hong Kong headquartered Comba Telecom.