Beginning from the premise that: “India does not have a policy for ensuring the growth and deployment of an efficient telecom infrastructure,” the TRAI has been conducting a consultation process with a view to developing just that.
The result is a long series of recommendations designed to create a conducive environment for the development of the infrastructure in India. Infrastructure provider-1 companies will be brought under Unified licence and permitted to install and share active network, on the provision that it is brought under Unified Licensing Regime. Other clauses broaden and strengthen the scope of mobile virtual network operators, create tax benefits for telecoms infrastructure provider companies, and tackle the heavy charges imposed by local authorities for the installation of telecoms towers.
The TRAI has also taken steps to address the shortage of IPv4 addresses in India, stating that all government websites should be made IPv6 compliant by 2012, and that IPv6 test bed facilities need to be created for testing products in an end-to-end IPv6 traffic environment.
In another set of recommendations, the TRAI is taking action to increase the local manufacturing of telecoms equipment, by proposing that 80% of all network technology purchased in 2019-2020 should be made in India, either by Indian vendors or overseas companies manufacturing the equipment in India. Currently, 13% of telecoms equipment purchased in India is made within the country, and only 3% is manufactured by domestic companies. Under the recommendations, limits on the value of imported technology would be introduced from 2012.
The recommendations can be found in full at: http://www.trai.gov.in/Infrastructure_Policy.pdf.
