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INTERVIEW

Communications Limited sold are about to remain. ment has to decide the preferred time
its property to Reliance Jio Today, Jio is one of them, Airtel is for the auction. The government has
InfraFircom Limited, while Tata second, Idea-Vodafone combined third, not taken any decision on this; right
Teleservices Limited and Telenor and BSNL-MTNL four players. If there decision will be taken at the right time.
Communications Pvt Ltd sold their are car players then I think the com-
property to Bharti Airtel. Vodafone petition will remain and consumers’ Experts believe that in 2010
India Limited and Idea Cellular interests will be safe. It is such a huge auctions a major contributor for
Limited merged. Is everything going market that even after this consolida- the high base price for spectrum,
well with the Indian telecom sector tion, I feel that this sector had a success- debt of around Rs 7 lakh crore, in
and going towards the positive ful story and it is going to be stable in Telecos. As a result, the wholesale
direction? the coming days and things will be fine. price of airwaves has gone up many
Consolidation is a worldwide phe- a times. Keeping this in view, the
nomena and it is in every industry. A What is the reason behind your TRAI spectrum can discuss the new
successful story of the telecom sec- department’s decision to wait for method for determining the base
tor has been in this country. This is the second half of 2019 for the price. What is the vision of telecom
a technology dependent sector and additional spectrum auction? Is ministry on this issue?
investment is more. Naturally, the it because some operators have In general, one thing should keep in
small players have faced difficulty, but demanded a delay in the auction due mind that the market theory depends
I believe consolidation has happened to high level of debt and the price upon demand and supply. Accord-
in the whole world. If you see the devel- war between Reliance Jio and the ingly, the price of something increases
oped countries of the world, US to any rest? if its demand is high. If the demand for
country of the world, everywhere there I think this is not the right question. The spectrum will increase, then its cost will
are two to three or four players. In our spectrum is available in large quantities increase. If the need for spectrum will
country consolidation has happened in the market today. TRAI has sent the be reduced and the price will be lower.
at a bigger level so only four players recommendation. Now the Govern- But TRAI decides the price of spectrum
after thinking thoroughly, and then
the ministry takes decision.
We will take right decision at the
right time and I want to assure you
that our government does not take
any decision in anyone’s influence.
The interest of the customer is our
highest priority. If we will face any
problem of service quality, we will
auction without any impact.

The government’s tenure is about
to end but it has apparently failed
to solve the problem of call-drop
in four years. I have personally
asked this question to your
predecessor too many times.
Apart from this, the question was
raised several times in Parliament
too. Wi-Fi does not even work in
the Central Hall, so what to do
to get its better level? And how
much time will it take? What is the
government doing on this?
Call drop does not only happen in
India. It is a universal phenomenon.
The problem of our country is that
those who understand technology
know that wireless network is not a
reliable network. Wire line network

TEHELKA / 15 FEBRUARY 2019 45 WWW.TEHELKA.COM

40-47 Q&A Anil Singh.indd 7 2/1/2019 8:18:31 PM