Happy New Year?

Not for those of us who have a non-IMEI number mobile phone. And according to
some estimates about 30 mn or 3 crore people are likely to be switched off. That
is a lot of people. And most of these people belong to the community that does
not have access to news or government announcements, or are not sensitized
enough on how to respond to them. And most of these people would have spent
about 1000-3000 bucks in buying a non-IMEI number handset.

And most of them would have bought this phone on the recommendation of a
salesman. According to reports more than 8 lakh such phones are imported through
formal as well as gray channels every month. There are now technologies
available where IMEI numbers of other phones can be planted on these Chinese
phones for a small fee. The result could be more problems for subscribers and
complications for operators, and far more complex security problems. An imposter
or a terrorist can implant my IMEI number on his non-IMEI phone, commit a crime,
and throw the phone. And I will be cooling my heels in some unknown crime branch
lockup. One hopes that there is strong and effective plan at the government
level as well as the operator level to handle this challenge.

New year will be nothing great for the millions who have bought a PC or a
laptop in the hope that they will have great Internet experience. Broadband is
still a distant dream and Internet access beyond the metros and a few big cities
continues to be very slow and unreliable. The government says that Internet
penetration is high on its agenda, but not much seems to have been achieved. The
figure of 127 mn Internet users floating around is absolutely bogus-the dial-up
and broadband is a very small number there, and it mostly includes all the
subscribers in the country who are capable of accessing data services using
their GSM/CDMA mobile phone and USB or PCMCIA data cards.

Similarly 2010 is unlikely to be a very happy new year for all the operators
who want to launch 3G services. Rarely has so much flip flop been seen on the
issue of spectrum allocation. Since there is no clear cut roadmap that the
Government of India has which defines the long term target, it is easy for
vested interest groups to pressurize and influence the government leading to
delays.

I would surely want to join those amongst us who believe that crossing the 50
crore phone connection milestone is itself a big achievement and calls for
celebration. All I would like to add is that when teledensity in countries
around us like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is also growing at similar
rate if not faster, expectations are going up as well. When a country like
Australia is putting up a $43 bn project that will deliver 100 Mbps Internet in
90% of its homes, India cannot take pride in its less than 1 Mbps mostly offered
today. In a survey last year, India had ranked 115 among 223 countries in terms
of Internet speed. And 20% connections globally were faster than 5 Mbps. Clearly
for telecom, on which India will grow in the future, it is not a very happy new
year. We surely must raise our glasses, but we must raise the bar too.

Ibrahim Ahamad

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in