Govt to soon roll out new telecom policy: Pilot

The government would soon roll out a new telecom policy leading to the second phase of revolution in the telecommunication industry, Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Sachin Pilot said today.

"There are about 93 crore mobile phones as of July 4, 2012. In the first phase of telecom revolution between 1998 and 2006, we saw exponential growth. There were about 15-18 million mobile handsets or SIM cards issued every month. Now we have a new telecom policy in place, which is almost ready to roll out," he told.

He was speaking after inaugurating the new Research and Development facility of digital switch equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent India.

Noting that voice and SMS would not be predominant revenue generators for companies in the second phase of the telecom revolution, he said data services, information and entertainment applications would shape the landscape of the telecommunication and IT industry.

"We have to be in a position to leverage that opportunity not just for the huge domestic opportunity but also a center of exporting these services globally," he said.

Observing that teledensity (telephone connections per 100 people) in India is about 77 per cent and more people are using mobile devices, he said available data indicated that the number of people accessing Internet through handheld devices has grown exponentially.

"There has been more than 200 per cent increase in the last six months," he said, adding that it is also imperative to create a ecosystem that is safe, secure and productive as more people access the Internet. This would require a joint collaboration of all stakeholders including, governments and individuals.

He urged IT companies to work jointly as the "government of India has put a crisis management in place".

"..it is imperative that companies within India also work with that mindset. There needs to be a inbuilt mechanism in manufacturing and production of services that leads to safe use at the end user level", he said.