The draft New Telecom Policy (NTP) is built around six strategic missions – achieving universal and meaningful connectivity, fostering innovation, promoting domestic manufacturing, ensuring a secure and trusted network, enhancing ease of living and doing business, and advancing sustainable development.
Those missions are accompanied by concrete targets and strategies with outcomes tied to a 2030 timeline. In terms of economic growth, the aim is to double the telecom sector’s contribution to India’s GDP and to attract an annual investment of Rs 1 trillion (approximately $12 billion) in telecommunication infrastructure by then. This would increase the information and communications technology (ICT) sector’s contribution to the GDP (which includes telecom) to around 11 per cent by 2030, up from the current 7.8 per cent.
In terms of trade, the NTP aims to double the export of telecom products and services and encourage hundreds of telecom start-ups. It also hopes to create 1 million new jobs, and upskill and reskill 1 million existing workers.
In terms of pure connectivity, the NTP aims to achieve 100 per cent population coverage through 4G and 90 per cent through 5G. It also aims to increase the fiberisation of telecom towers from 46 per cent at present to 80 per cent by 2030, and eventually to 100 per cent. To safeguard critical telecom infrastructure, it proposes the adoption of quantum-resistant cryptography. It also aims for a 30 per cent reduction in the telecom sector’s carbon footprint to improve sustainability as these goals are pursued.
The policy also suggests a light-touch regulatory framework for authorising submarine cable infrastructure to streamline connectivity expansion.
The provision of 1 million public Wi-Fi hotspots also seems possible. It must be noted that a target of 10 million hotspots was set in 2018 under the previous National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 (NDCP), which the NTP is supposed to replace, but only 55,000 have been rolled out over the past seven years. The target has been reduced to more realistic levels. Similarly, the target of 100 million connected households will require acceleration on roll-outs with just under 45 million households currently connected.
Achieving fiberisation of all gram panchayats (GPs) under BharatNet with an uptime of over 98 per cent also seems plausible. To achieve this, either BSNL will have to turn around dramatically (and it shows some signs of doing this) or some other mechanism for connecting panchayats will have to be devised.
The policy also proposes halving grievance redressal timelines, scaling up the Samriddh Gram model for village-level telecom access and cutting red tape around spectrum allocations and right-of-way permissions. A composite electricity billing system for telecom players and simplified compliance for businesses are also planned.
A broader challenge lies in the underlying causes of poor rural connectivity. Why have India’s private operators hesitated to connect the hinterland? Part of the problem is difficult terrain, and satellite broadband is supposed to address that.
Can the NTP enable the development of a commercial model that works in the hinterland? The NTP aims to ensure that telecom broadband services cost less than 2 per cent of monthly gross national income per capita – that would be about Rs 400 per month. This is considerably higher than the current ARPU, which varies from Rs 250 per month for Airtel at the high end to a very low of Rs 40 for BSNL in some rural circles.
Rural per capita is much lower than the national average, and BSNL’s ARPU (which is running at a maximum of around Rs 175 in urban circles) is more relevant in assessing how much the rural consumer can pay since BSNL is a big player in rural areas. This highlights the challenges involved in providing rural connectivity at rates that are commercially viable for operators and also affordable for users. The rural connectivity challenges must be faced if the digital divide is to be closed.
The NTP will promote “Made in India” telecom products globally through brand-building activities, and look to encourage investments in partner countries, leveraging lines of credit, as well as try to enhance the export competitiveness of Indian products by streamlining regulations and simplifying equipment certification processes. It also looks to increase domestic telecom manufacturing output by 150 per cent.
The first target is to achieve 50 per cent import substitution through telecom products designed, developed and manufactured in India. That in itself will be a big value add. There are plans to establish a telecom manufacturing zone with integrated infrastructure for enabling telecom and network equipment design and manufacturing. The policy also suggests providing targeted financial support to boost domestic telecom manufacturing and incentivising telecom operators to use indigenously designed and manufactured equipment.
In support of this, the NTP aims to establish 30 advanced research labs across top academic institutions and an Indian Institute of Telecom Technology (IIT2) to drive research and develop industry-aligned courses on subjects such as telecom engineering, electronics design, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, 5G/6G, internet of things and quantum communication. The NTP aims to position India among the top 10 global hubs for innovation and research in emerging technologies and to attain a 10 per cent global share in 6G-related intellectual property rights.
Spectrum will be made available for captive non-public networks and private 5G for industrial use cases, and the testing and certification lab ecosystem will be harmonised with global requirements. The NTP will work towards transforming C-DOT into a telecom research and development (R&D) institution of excellence to foster innovation in next-generation technologies. It will support the development of standard essential patents (SEPs) in emerging technologies by incentivising domestic R&D.
The government will target R&D spends of Rs 10 billion per year. It will accelerate public R&D investment by improving the utilisation of Digital Bharat Nidhi, launch a technology readiness level funding programme and consider setting up a Sovereign Patent Fund with the objective of creating an SEP pool.
Two funds – the Telecom Software Development Fund and the Sovereign Patent Fund – will help create a patent pool. The NTP also envisages introducing innovative financing models such as a fund of funds and blended finance to expand funding opportunities for start-ups.
The NTP will create an innovation-centric Section 8 company and encourage (“handhold”) the creation of 500 tech start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises specialising in telecom technologies. It is looking to deploy indigenous technologies in at least 10 countries.
Generating employment is obviously desirable. But new technologies such as AI, 5G/6G, reduce labour intensity, especially at the lower end of the chain. Combating this will mean upskilling to exploit opportunities in programming, solutions, data analytics, semiconductor design, etc. The challenge extends beyond the telecom sector and requires a review and rebooting of the entire technical education ecosystem.
India’s telecom networks should promote endpoint security for telecom network devices by deploying an indigenous endpoint detection and response solution, the NTP has proposed.
Security is a key pillar of the NTP. The policy mandates robust cybersecurity audits, biometric-based user verification and faster response to telecom cyberthreats. A National Telecom SafeNet will be created to secure national infrastructure, while satellite networks will also be monitored for data protection and integrity.
The draft encourages the use and development of AI for cyberspace applications, such as cyber security, where AI is touted as both a challenge with offensive tools (such as generative AI-fuelled bots attacking telecom networks) and a defensive strategy (such as systems that use AI to detect large attacks and thwart them at an early stage). It also suggests using AI in complaint resolution “through a unified portal and use of chatbots”.
The NTP commits to reducing the telecom sector’s carbon footprint by 30 per cent, promoting renewable energy adoption for 30 per cent of telecom towers, integrating the sector with the Indian carbon market, and implementing a robust e-waste management framework. The ICT sector is very energy-intensive and telecom infrastructure has to be made resilient to climate change impacts. Again, the goals are unexceptionable, and it is to be hoped that the policy can follow through on the ground and produce the desired results.
The NTP is designed to replace the NDCP, 2018, and the outcomes from that can serve as a good reference point. The gaps between goals and actual achievements highlight the areas where the NDCP was unrealistic, and the changes required in the implementation strategy if the NTP is to do better.
The execution bottlenecks must be addressed. This will require coordination among ministries, start-ups, academia and industry.
While the NTP is broad ranging, there is an absence of reference to spectrum pricing reform, and this could undermine operator viability. The role of private sector players is also not very clearly defined. The NTP misses out on regulatory clarity on over-the-top platforms, digital content and convergence in the telecom and broadcast space. Consumer protection requires more detail on privacy rights, redressal mechanisms and digital literacy. These are all areas where the draft could do with strengthening and better articulation.