Centre to take stock of Telecom Policy 2012 on Monday

The Telecom Policy 2012 promised abolition of roaming charges within India and nationwide number portability. It is June 2013 and you are still paying roaming charges and no one is even speaking of portability across the country. Norms for Unified Licenses are delayed and the government still has to get its act together on creating a institutional framework for ’lawful’ interception of your calls and data for security purposes.

The policy also envisages that indigenously manufactured SIM cards with indigenously designed chips are used by service providers. Here again, a lot needs to be accomplished.

These and other issues promised under NTP 2012 but not delivered yet will be taken up in a meeting at the Department of Telecom on Monday. This meeting is being held under the chairmanship of Member Technology and a committee formed for this review consists of eight members.

The issue of nationwide portability of mobile numbers-which means you can change the service provider while retaining the number-has been referred to TRAI; TRAI is also finalising a timeline and norms for abolition of national roaming. The service providers are obviously not keen on giving up roaming charges and fear losses from this to mount to anywhere between Rs 12,000-15,000 crore for the industry. Now, one point of view with TRAI is to offer roaming through special vouchers, which may mean it is not completely free but costs substantially less. TRAI is yet to come out with guidelines on the issue though.

On Unified License norms, the DoT says they will be ready by month end against the earlier deadline of March. UL norms are crucial for telecom service providers: UL means license will finally be delinked from spectrum and it also means companies can now offer all services that existing licenses permit while being able to share spectrum and telecom infrastructure, something the earlier licensing regime did not permit.

On the issue of radiation standards for mobile towers and handsets though, a lot seems to have been accomplished. According to an internal note prepared ahead of the Monday review of NTP 2012, the DoT has already lowered the Specific Absorption rate (SAR) value for mobile handsets from 2 to 1.6 watt/kg and from September this year, only those mobile handsets which have revised SAR value of 1.6 watt/kg are permitted to be manufactured or imported into India. Norms for tower radiation have also been made stricter.

Another major issue under consideration will be how to provide encryption and monitoring for security purposes in a centralised manner, without any manual intervention from telcos. This is initially being planned for ten telecom service areas and required infrastructure should be in place by December this year. Also, the government plans to establish a centre for telecom equipment testing and security certification - this will also be reviewed om Monday.

Besides, plans on freeing up of more spectrum for public use will be discussed. Spectrum is needed for services like Wi-Fi, wireless handsets on landline phones and for equipment testing purposes.