Today I am going to talk about failure of India telecom operators to carry the telecom revolution further down to rural segment. I am strong supporter of technology for masses and in the line of iPhone I feel operators have missed the opportunity by knocking on wrong doors at stoke of midnight.

Let me explain. How many people in India could afford iPhone? Can you just estimate? I dnt know the exact figure, but may be 1%(could be less) in India could really afford to buy iPhone3G. Now, I will give you another statistics , around 70% of market in rural India remains to be penetrated. So where you are ? As an Indian telecom operator where should you focus 1-2% market or 70% market? You know better...

This is what I call..the missed opportunity. Imagine someday someone like CEO of an Indian Telecom Operator coming to press conference and announces a rural telecom policy of that company, a unified approach. What a day will it be...If someone says Indian telecom market is divided into 2 different segments, one urban other nonurban..it is wrong...Indian telecom market is divided into different operators without common vision for Indian rural penetration. If I have to believe things then every operator has its own vision to do things in its own manner and eveyone is trying something or other.

Infrastructure sharing is welcome move in the telecom segment but it is really long way to go to bring a unified vision of rural penetrtion to carry it forward. Most of the operators in India are not innovative enough to think different. I really miss Jack Strout here when he talks about Differentiation...When it is really difficult to bring differentiation about different telecom operators and its operation its Value Added Service creating more space for differentiation, but it is still not properly utilized. How can you bring differentiation among yourself? My question to all telecom operators...it is touch job....yes it is....Do you have a unified vision for rural penetration? Do you have vision for new technology brining benefits for masses? All problem lies over there..

Most telecom operators think too much about ROIs etc..I am not a business person..but when someone says Operators should be given support for carrying infra to rural India, and GOI should waive some taxes etc, I just want to say Sir, please be serious...you are either missed opportunity or going to miss it very soon..Why someone has to wait for GOI to tap untapped market? It is fear of ROIs ? It is fear of investments without revenues? What? Can't we simply sort out things..

Recently TRAI has recommended DoT to liberalize Internet telephony in India. What a great move it is... Internet telephony is not a new technology itself. It enables someone to make voice calls by using Internet, which in turn reduces the cost of call significantly. And You know Indian operators had the option of rolling out IP Telephony but none of them rolled out..Why? They fear if they roll out IP Telephony it will eat up the revenues of voice calls made through mobile infrastructure in which all of them have invested billions. It is logical...but it is not wise. This is not a new dilemma for telecom operator. It happened before in developed countries. But now if TRAI's recommendation is taken seriously by DoT, independent Internet Service Providers like Sify etc will jump on the opportunity to roll out Internet telephony in rural segment where as I mentioned 70% of market remained to be tapped. So anyhow...operators have going to lose the revenues generated from IP telephony..and the bad part is someone else other than a telecom operator will tap on the opportunity to carry benefit of technology to masses. Both way operators are losing...

I don't guarantee the success or failure of IPTelephony but thing is sure it will bring the cost of making calls further down which will again hamper ARPU aspect of operator business. Even now also many people are using computers to make voice calls, imagine someday when IP Telephony will be a mass effect.

Carrying telecom technology to rural area is not an easy thing. Main problem is sparse population...the geographic aspect of rural population. Next big cause of concern is penetration of computers among rural households. Still I fear, the Computer penetration in rural segment in very very poor. Main cause of this bit of cost of ownership and other is language, where mainly content are in English. We need to work a lot in improving these two aspects and there are number of work projects going on in this area. In India there are 22 official languages and making contents relevant to population is real challenage.

Other thing BSNL is trying these days is about Broadband over power lines. BPL project is ongoing in Amethi,UP and if it is successful the model will be replicated in other villages. BPL is the technology where you carry data, Internet over power lines. When we think of rural population, where carrying a wire solution or laying a fiber is costly affair, BPL is good option in terms of cost, but in terms of interference issues with BPL technology I dnt think it is a viable option.

We need to create applications and contents relevant to rural population and believe me participation of rural people in this is really important. I believe next point of communication revolution will be possible only when we participate in it..the rural India..mainly..otherwise technology is merely a tool..and it will remain a tool only...but it is people more than the technology are going to make something successful or a big failure.

When it comes to participation aspect of rural India, I believe Distant Education and Content relevant for Farmers like maket rates of crops, weather forcast etc in India languages scores high. I will not talk about the availability of teachers in rural India, it is well known fact broadband Internet will have a great impact on lives if Distant Education dream is fulfilled. There is a good advertisement of Idea Cellular in this regard, One teacher can teach how many student? One School can enroll how many students..? Only change in it should be a Video+Audio Display of teacher teaching in a class long long way in city like Mumbai or Delhi teaching students in Rajasthan...Broadband has to play real role in this...and about technology.. we have WiMAX coming ...though operators are not thinking seriously about it...new recommendation by TRAI, over IP Telephony will boost the broadband deployment in rural India by participation of more and more ISP and other service provides.. carrying technology forward.

We are really doing good...but we can do better than this...I don't say generating revenues by selling iPhones is wrong...but not having a clear vision for rural deployment certainly shows our seriousness towards the problem at hand. Don't expect GOI will waive something or other for you...lets sort out spectrum issues in WiMAX...as it is well known fact that Wireless local loop is only viable option available currently...but focusing on wrong segment at wrong time will certainly hamper our prospect of generating revenues. I remember a good line from Build to Last "There is something more than money ...it is vision...we survive...and we flourish.."

It is fragmentation of market into operators, technology which is creating some of these issues. But unless we wish to do something about it on speedy basis, we will be on the verge of missing opportunity. A unified approach to rural penetration will solve many of the issues.