GOVERNMENT LOOKS AT FURTHER OPENING UP
OF TELECOM AND TELEVISION
A large swathe of Indian industry is confident
that the government is going to fully prise open the broadcasting
and telecom businesses to private companies. They point out
to the drastic liberalisation in the Internet regulations
that the BJP-led government has brought about. Anyone can
become an Internet Service Provider as long as foreign investment
is limited to 49%. The cost of the government licence is just
Rs 6,000, with accompanying bank guarantees.
A couple of years ago, licences in many sectors were tough
to get and could cost a lot of money. Many an Indian businessmen
made money trading in them. The government is also doling
out ISP licences in a few days rather than the few years that
it used to take earlier. "The mood in government is open up.
Get more industry friendly," says an industrialist. According
to one faction in the information and broadcasting ministry,
the four-year old Cable TV Regulation Act is going to be amended
to allow telecom and cable companies to partner each other.
Multi-systems operators will be allowed to provide their infrastructure
for voice carriage to telecom firms, where the latter don't
have any. Ditto with telecom players who will be able to provide
their conduits to cable TV companies for video carriage where
the latter have not build any infrastructure.
Earlier governments had shot down proposals such as this,
though a test had been carried out in Punjab by a telecom
firm a couple of years ago. Cable operators will thus be able
to provide telephony and other interactive services over their
networks.
On the direct-to-home television front, the government is
thinking of giving the go-ahead to interested parties as long
as they carry all the channels owned by state-owned broadcaster
DD. The latter is likely to function as a regulator (until
one is set up) and is seeking control over the subscriber
management systems and content of any DTH service. DD will
also be part of a revenue-sharing deal with any DTH operator.
Industry sources expect the entire procedures to be simplified
this time, and that the high licensing fees being talked of
a couple of years ago will be kept at an affordable level
like has been done with the ISP policy.
Will the BJP go back on its current liberalisation drive and
what if it is toppled and a new government comes to power?
"No way will there be any backtracking," says a senior official
at the department of telecommunications. "The toothpaste is
out of the tube; it's difficult to get it back in again."
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