Indian Railways and Telecom Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw in an event reported to The Indian Express that “India is not heading towards telecom monopoly or even duopoly”. The minister made a bold statement that India still has a wider scope of market in Telecommunications, despite dominance of companies like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in recent years due to revolutionizing the network industry by making India the most economic market for internet and calling services.
Reliance Jio effortlessly entered the crowded and highly competitive mobile market by offering free 4G voice and data service and Airtel was the only other company which followed the same path and prominent companies like Idea and Vodafone despite their collaboration as Vi (Vodafone Idea) they couldn’t even compete with these two giants.
However in the event when asked about the same the minister said “BSNL is coming up as a very stable player in the market. They have started making operating profits now”. He added that the technology they will employ for 4G surpasses other relevant technologies. BSNL will utilize a 4G stack from a TCS-led consortium (Tata Consultancy Services), which can be upgraded to 5G through a software rollout. On May 22nd announced that it received an Advance Purchase Order (APO) valued at over Rs 15,000 crore (around $1.8 billion) from government-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), for the spread of 4G network throughout the country. The consortium includes Tata Group’s telecom gear making company Tejas Networks, which will be responsible for supplying and servicing the Radio Access Networks (RAN) equipment.
When asked about that their are generally only two to three main players in Telecom industry , the minister came up with a logical reply which stated “It is very Capital intensive and it is driven by very rapid technology cycles, also India is moving towards becoming the most affordable telecom market.”
