Calling for local help

Private cellular phone service providers in both the metros and the circles face a plethora of problems. In particular, logistical proble...

Private cellular phone service providers in both the metros and the circles face a plethora of problems. In particular, logistical problems are greatly hampering the roll-out plans of the private operators in the circles. for one, the circle operators have to cover vast tracts of land where the number of subscribers is very low in a large geographical area. The expenditure on laying the microwave backbone for the cellular service in a circle is huge. Its regular maintenance is both difficult and time consuming.

Further in areas where the microwave backbone is not cost effictive, the only alternative is to lease lines through the DoT transmission network which is prohibitively expensive. In the circles every individual city has got DoT network which has to be connected to the other individual cities for long distance trariffing. To provide the mobile to fixed phone and fixed phone to mobile facility among these cities a point of interconnection with the local DoT network has to be established. This entailsheavy expenditure on extra backbone networking and high DoT charges and cost of special equipment.

The circles are still struggling with antiquated equipment and have poorer technical back-up. Consequently, they are not in a position to provide uqdated facilities and services such as CLIP 8212; Calling Line Identification Presentation-and therefore loses out on additional revenue.

Under the licence agreement, it is mandatory for cellular service providers to cover 10 per cent of the district headquarters of the state in the first year and 50 per cent within three years. This puts extra pressure for large networking and huge capital investments in areas where the potential subscribers are low and the population is widely dispersed.

For instance, in Bihar there are 55 district headquarters and 42 in eastern U.P. and the private operator has to provide cellular services in 28 and 21 district headquarters. Most of these districts are extremely small with a very poor subscriber potential.

To make the problemworse, in the circles that comprise various districts there are multifarious municipal authorities in each individual city from whom individual sanction are to be got. A cellular service provider, covering a couple of circles may have to obtain municipal and other sanctions from approximately 36 different authorities. This adds to manpower requirement and additional overhead costs. Besides permission is required to be taken from the National Highway Authority of India and the department of Forest for digging along the roads/highways for microwave linkage. A similar permission is required from the Airport Authority of India in conjunction with the individual airport to install microwave linking. Taking into account that it is the circle operators who help take the cellular technology the grassroots level in the country, the government needs to ensure that they are given the required support and help to overcome the handicaps that they are currently facing.

On the notional pricing of calls, the extent ofexpenditure incurred needs to be discounted. The state administration, led by the chief ministers, should take greater interest in settling the local issues. In any case the local sales tax should not be more than 5 per cent in any state. Further cellular operators need to be given land at concessional rates to enable them to put up the network infrastructure and all land registration would have to be expedited for them.

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The author is the senior vice president of Koshika Telecom.