Robust Telecom Infrastructure: Key to Realise Digital India Mission

Industry committed towards green sustainable telecommunication to reduce its reliance on diesel

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Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA), apex industry association representing leading telecom tower and infrastructure providers with ATC Telecom Infra, ATC India Tower & ATC Telecom Tower, Indus Towers, GTL Infrastructures, Tower Vision India, Bharti Infratel and Reliance Infratel, in its Annual General Meeting 2017 emphasised the need of a robust telecom infrastructure to realise the Digital India mission as telecom infrastructure will enable various futuristic technologies such as 5G, IoT, M2M, artificial intelligence and virtual reality etc.

It is imperative to develop 'state-of-the-art’ network architecture just like other infrastructure facilities such as water,sewage,  railway, roads and transportation etc. as telecommunication services nowadays have become an integral and essential necessity of our daily lives.

The Annual General meeting witnessed participation by senior Government officials and industry players. To add to this list of eminent speakers, IT Secretaries of Haryana and Odisha presented their insights on policy implementation of their state and framework. Leading knowledge partners from Deloitte and Ernst & Young shared their views on the Roadmap and Regulatory Support for Expediting Robust Telecom Infrastructure.

Ms. Aruna Sundararajan, chairman, Telecom Commission and Secretary (T), Department of Telecommunication (DoT), said: “The Indian telecommunications sector has been at the core of social and economic development of this country and telecom infrastructure sector has been the bedrock for a Digital Economy. Telecommunication and Telecommunication Infrastructure are the backbone of ‘Digital India’, where future technologies like mobility, analytics, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine to Machine (M2M) Communications are playing a key role in implementing the Digital India vision. A robust telecom infrastructure will play a key role in seamless connectivity, which is the essence of true Digitisation.”  

The dignitaries also discussed key concern areas of the industry such as non-discriminatory access to Right of Way and inclusion of IP-1s in the RoW notified rules; extension of benefits under infrastructure status to tower industry; availability of Government resources such as Land and Buildings on a fair and non- discriminatory basis to both TSPs and IPs for installation of telecom infrastructure and alignment of States tower installation guidelines with the DoT guidelines/RoW Rules of November 2016.

RS Sharma, chairman, TRAI, said: “I have been one of those who have believed that in the converged environment there is need of independent infrastructure players which will ensure orderly and stable growth of infrastructure. Further, it will also bring in economy of scale and the cost effectiveness due to the sharing of infrastructure at the backend. I also believe Infrastructure Players must have an active role in the provisioning of common duct, in-building solutions, pubic Wi-Fi and fibre lay etc.”

Akhil Gupta, chairman, TAIPA said: “The success of Digital India, financial inclusion lies in making internet available at the bottom of pyramid. The telecom infrastructure industry faces glitches in network rollout especially in rural and semi-urban areas. Apart from this, it is very important that government ensure grid power supply to operate telecom tower sites in the upcoming National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2018.”

Tilak Raj Dua, director general, TAIPA, said: “The overall development of telecommunication services in the past few decades has been phenomenal with the help telecom infrastructure supporting these services at the backend. With the government's thrust on Digital India and Smart Cities, it is needless to say that industry will unfold more new business avenues in the forthcoming time."

The government should also ensure priority EB connections and quality power on preferential tariffs rather than the commercial tariffs; Safety and security of telecom infrastructure is another long-pending demand of the industry.


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taipa telecom infrastructure Digital India Mission

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