Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates – New York Times “The Bells still control the bulk of the country’s 180 million landlines and are far from giving up on what has been a giant cash cow. When pushed, they are even offering their own Internet-based calling, but these services are rarely advertised. It is cheaper to cut prices to keep customers, they figure, than to try to win back customers later from a rival. During the first quarter of this year, the number of traditional telephone lines dropped by 150,000 a week, according to TeleGeography. At the same time, the number of subscribers to Internet telephone services has increased by 100,000 a week.
Full article available here New Delhi, July 2 (PTI): Even as the existing National Telecom Policy of 1999 lays down the roadmap of a review in every five years, the Department of Telecom has dropped the ill-fated draft of the proposed policy completely with no immediate plans to revive it. […] Permitting number portability, implementing carrier access code (CAC), setting up of ombudsman, and unbundling of last-mile access for broadband services were some of the draft recommendations of the core committee of DoT on NTP. DoT was never in favour of number portability, a facility which allows subscribers to retain their old number even if they change the service provider, carrier access code where the consumer could choose his/her long distance carrier and of course the unbundling of last mile of BSNL and MTNL for broadband. The draft had sought dilution in regulator’s role, saying a ‘Light Touch’ approach should be made at a later stage. The committee has also recommended M&A norms to be part of NTP.
Pyramid Research (December 2004) The push for broadband in India has once again taken center stage with the country’s government formally announcing its broadband policy, and deciding, as many had predicted, not to accept the regulator’s proposal for local loop unbundling. Instead, the Department of Telecoms (DoT) has deemed that the last mile copper loop isn’t a bottleneck for the adoption of broadband services, and thus leaves it up to the state owned incumbents (BSNL & MTNL) to enter mutually agreeable arrangements with private parties for access to the last mile if needed. Together, both incumbents have 45 million copper loops, of which only 25% is adaptable for broadband application given the poor state of the copper plant in a majority of areas in India…. (go to full article)
Should this be added to the debate? 65% of homes have electricity; more than the 25% with some form of telecom access. By TOM McNICHOL HIGH-speed Internet access usually comes to homes through one of two wires: a telephone line for D.S.L.