New Telecom Policy will be application driven: Manoj Sinha

The Communication Minister Manoj Sinha today said that ministry is working on a new Telecom Policy which will be application driven as compared to National Telecom Policy, 2012 which was connectivity driven.

Speaking at a seminar, the minister said that the new policy has to be focused on the end users and should look at the newer opportunities for expanding the availability of Telecom services.

He added the advent of high-speed data services and enhanced expectations of the users to get real-time on-demand bandwidth to run near real-time live applications enjoins us to prepare new policies.

Sinha also pointed out that the Ministry has decided to involve a large pool of experts from outside the department to get more inputs from the citizens and stakeholders for the new policy.

The country has close to 1.2 billion telephone connections, including 1.17 billion wireless telephone connections and similarly witnessed the rapid growth of the broadband connections that now stands at 276.52 million.

He said, more than the number, it is heartening to see the six-fold increase in Data traffic in India from 561 million GB in the first quarter to 2988 million GB in the third quarter of 2016-17, which is a whopping 400 percent jump.

The new policy will be also keeping an eye on 5G technology that is tipping on the precipice to enter Indian markets.

Sinha further said that while our service providers are rapidly deploying the 4 G technology, his focus is on two important aspects- the need to expand the connectivity to all parts including the north-eastern and Left Wing Extremism affected areas and Secondly to keep an eye on future generation that is 5 G technology and ensure that India plays a key role in standards development and get a healthy share of the innovations and patents in the 5G technology pool.

On Foreign Direct Investment in the sector (FDI) he informed hat the FDI equity inflow in telecom sector from April 2016 to March 2017 was the US $ 5564 million, which is more than four times the average inflow of about 1.3 billion dollars every year since 2013-14.