Public-private partnership should be there in R&D

Dr.Ashok Jhunjhunwala
11 June 2004

He dreams of reversing the Indian rupee: US dollar exchange rate. The father of the first Indian telecom technology-corDECT wireless in the local loop (See A global winner) Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head, Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology voices his agenda for the new telecom minister.

Bring in rural service provider concept
There seems to have been a de-emphasis on rural connectivity during the previous government's regime. The ushering in of the unified licence regime saw the rural connectivity obligation of telecom players getting 'disconnected'. When this was pointed out, it was said that the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would look after rural telephony and the universal service obligation fund would take care of the expenditure.

Here it should be noted that when BSNL had the monopoly, there was hardly any service quality and whatever was offered came at a high cost. And if you now say that rural areas should be left to the BSNL then we go back to having a monopoly, once again, where the casualty will be service quality with low cost service to the rural people.

It is important to bring in a new category of telecom service providers called the rural service provider (RSP) to cater exclusively to the rural areas. The proposal is doing the rounds within the government for the past several months. RSP should be brought to the fore now.

Affordable hardware to expand broadband
The focus on increasing the broadband penetration is welcome. But broadband will get popular only when we have a low cost device. The mobile phone service didn't score high when the handset cost was Rs20,000 and the per minute tariff was around Rs16. The cell phone service caught the people's imagination only when they got a handset for Rs2,000 and the per minute call charge came down to Re1 or below.

If broadband has to flourish we should have a personal computers available for Rs.5,000. Today the cost of a PC is nearly half the annual salary of an average worker. On the other hand if status quo prevails then broadband access will be restricted to the upper echelons of society. The agenda for the new government should be to develop a low cost PC to push up internet penetration.