ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by T H ChowdarySubscribe to T H Chowdary

Telecom Regulation and Consumer Welfare

Neither the telecom companies nor the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have assisted in the participation of consumer bodies in an intelligent and effective manner in the TRAI's consultative processes. True, Indian telecom consumers now have a wider choice and prices too have tended to come down, but yet there are many areas of concern to consumers. Some of the important ones are discussed here.

Telecommunications: Interconnection Dispute: Basic Considerations

The issues which need to be understood and deliberated upon for resolving the dispute over interconnection between BSNL/MTNL on the one hand and VSNL on the other.

Rural and Village Public Telephones

Government and public policy must be fair and equitable to all enterprises irrespective of ownership and competition should be on equal terms.

Information Technology for Development

Andhra Pradesh has rolled out major facilitating measures to boost investment in information technology in the state, including infrastructure, training, incentives and amendments to labour laws. It has thus become the potential role model for other states as India attempts to harness the use of IT in the evolution of knowledge state.

Telecom: Policy Response to Change

In a country like India which is not yet telephone-saturated and ongoing changes in related areas are resulting in a rapidly changing profile of users, providers and their respective needs, continuous revision of the telecom policy is imperative. Given the emerging new technologies and the integrating economies there must be fairness among competitors.

VSNL Investment in Tata TeleServices

The objections raised to VSNL's decision to invest in Tata TeleServices show how fragile and untenable the government's disinvestment programme is so long as politicians are not effectively stopped from interfering in the functioning of the privatised PSUs.

Sense and Nonsense on Village Public Telephones

To require every telephone company to provide public telephones in villages in the state for which it has got a basic telephony licence is vastly wasteful and impractical. Instead the least cost method of providing village public telephones should be identified. Two alternative approaches are suggested here.

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Dismal Balance Sheet As the fiscal year draws to a close and expectations mount over the contents of the budget for the next year, a stocktaking of what has been achieved on the promises made in the last budget is in order. Such an exercise brings little credit to the government: unkept promises, an unkempt fisc and an economy in the dumps present an uninspiring picture.

Competition in International Long Distance Telecom Services

The recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to permit entry of private companies into international long distance (ILD) telecom services is to be welcomed, all the more because no limit is proposed on the number of licensees providing ILD services. However, many of the conditions it is seeking to impose on the licensees do not meet the cardinal test which should be: is the consumer going to be disadvantaged if this condition is not imposed?

Convergence Bill: An Advance, but Flawed

What has come to be known as the Convergence Bill, introduced in parliament in the monsoon session, is a great advance on previous enactments for setting up the TRAI and the TDSAT. There are nevertheless a number of serious flaws, omissions and undesirable provisions in the bill which need rectification. A critical analysis.

Telecommunications in the Tenth Plan

Technological developments and mass consumption of telecommunication services have dictated far-reaching restructuring of telecommunication regimes across the world. The same factors necessitate a basic reorientation of the approach to telecommunications development in the Tenth Plan.

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