Indian Telecom History Volume-I

INDIAN TELECOM HISTORY
VOLUME - 1
By
TELECOM INDIA DAILY
This presentation covers long journey of Indian Telecom.
We have tried our best to include major changes
occurred, reforms made and important dates.
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next generation messengers
BEGINNING
• 1851: The sprawling Posts and Telegraphs Department,
for instance, occupied a small corner of the public works
department, in.
• Dr. William O’Shaughnessy pioneered telegraph and

telephone in India belonged to the Public Works
Department.
• 1854 :A regular, separate department was opened,

when telegraph facilities were thrown open to the public.
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Historical Changes
• 1854-57 : The Telegraph Department comprised a

Superintendent of Telegraphs.
• Three Deputy Superintendents at Bombay, Madras and

Pegu in Burma, Inspectors at Indore, Agra, Kanpur and
Banaras and an operating and maintenance staff .
• This was the basic structure.
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Historical Changes
• Dr. O'Shaughnessy was the first Superintendent of
Electric Telegraphs in India and later became the first
Director General.
• Indo-European Telegraph Department, later known as

the Overseas Communications, was administered by a
Director-in-Chief whose headquarters was in London.
• 15th February, 1888 : merged with the Director-General

of the Indian Telegraph Department.
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Historical Changes
• 1914 : World War I, Postal Department and the
Telegraph Department were amalgamated under a
single Director-General.
• April, 1925 : The accounts of the Indian Posts and

Telegraphs were reconstituted to examine the true fiscal
profile of the department.
• The attempt was to find out the extent to which the

department was imposing a burden on the taxpayers.
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Historical Changes
• 1st April, 1950 : In 1950 the number of Telephone

Exchanges absorbed from princely states was 196.
• The installed capacity of these 196 exchanges was

13,362 lines with 11,296 working connections.
• Improve their technical efficiency by replacing obsolete

and unserviceable equipment and lending well-qualified
and experienced staff.
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FROM P&T TO DoT
P&TÆDoT
• 31st December, 1984 : postal, telegraph and telephone
services were managed by the Posts and Telegraphs
Department till this date.
• January 1985 :two separate Departments for the Posts

and the Telecommunications were created.
• The accounts of the department, initially, were

maintained by the Accountant General of the P&T.
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DEPARTMENT OF
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
DoT
• The Telecommunication Board consisted of the

Secretary Telecommunications, who was the Chairman
with Member(Finance), Member (Operations), Member
(Development), Member (Personnel) and Member
(Technology).
• 1989 : The Telecom Commission was constituted.
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DoT
• The Commission has the DoT Secretary as its

Chairman with Member (Services), Member(Technology)
and Member (Finance) as its full time members.
• The Secretary (Finance), Secretary (DoE), Secretary

(Industries) and Secretary (Planning Commission) are
part time members of the Commission.
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DoT
• 1986 :Department reorganised the Telecommunication

Circles with the Secondary Switching Areas as basic
units.
• This was implemented in a phased manner.
• Bombay and Delhi Telephones were separated to create

the new entity called Mahanagar Telephone Nigam
Ltd.(MTNL).
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1994
NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

Objectives
• Focus : telecommunication for all and telecommunication
within the reach of all. This means ensuring the
availability of telephone on demand as early as possible.
• Achieving universal service covering all villages as early

as possible i.e. provision of access to all people for
certain basic telecom services at affordable and
reasonable prices.
• The defence and security interests of the country will be

protected.
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Objectives
• The quality of telecom services should be of world
standard. Removal of consumer complaints, dispute
resolution and public interface will receive special
attention providing widest permissible range of services
to meet the customer's demand at reasonable prices.
• Taking into account India's size and development, it is

necessary to ensure that India emerges as a major
manufacturing base and major exporter of telecom
equipment.
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Status--1994
• Telephone density was 0.8 per hundred persons as
against the world average of 10 per hundred persons.
• Lower than China (1.7), Pakistan (2), Malaysia (13).
• 8 million lines with a waiting list of about 2.5 million.

Nearly 1.4 lakh villages, out of a total of 5,76,490 villages
in the country, are covered by telephone services. There
are more than 1 lakh public call offices in the urban
areas.
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Revised Targets
• Telephone should be available on demand by 1997.
• All villages should be covered by 1997.
• Urban areas- PCO for every 500 persons by 1997.
• All value-added services available internationally should

be introduced in India well within the VIII Plan period,
preferably by 1996.
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GSM
• August, 1995 : GSM entered India.
• Historic first cell phone-call was made by MobileNet-

joint venture between Telstra (Australia) & B.K. Modi
group.
• Mobile revolution began in Kolkata.
• Handset costs-40,000 & Call tariff- 17 rs/min.
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TELECOM REGULATORY
AUTHORITY OF INDIA
TRAI
• January 1997 : TRAI was formed.
• To provide an effective regulatory framework and

adequate safeguards to ensure fair competition and
protection of consumer interests.
• 1998 : First tariff order issued in –thus reforms effective

from 1998.
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Role of TRAI
• Section 13 of the TRAI Act gives adequate powers to
TRAI to issue directions to service providers.
• Under Section 14 of the Act, the TRAI has full

adjudicatory powers to resolve disputes between service
providers.
• TRAI will be assigned the arbitration function for

resolution of disputes between Government (in its role as
licensor) and any licensee.
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Teledensity -1998
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1999
NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

Objectives
• Availability of affordable and effective communications

for the citizens- core vision and goal of the telecom
policy.
• Balance between universal service to all uncovered

areas, including the rural areas, and high-level services
capable of meeting the needs of the country’s economy.
• Development of telecommunication facilities in remote,

hilly and tribal areas of the country.
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Objectives
• Create a modern and efficient telecommunications
infrastructure taking into account the convergence of IT,
media, telecom and consumer electronics and thereby
propel India into becoming an IT superpower.
• Convert PCO’s, wherever justified, into Public Teleinfo

centres having multimedia capability like ISDN services,
remote database access, government and community
information systems etc.
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Objectives
• Transform in a time bound manner, the

telecommunications sector to a greater competitive
environment in both urban and rural areas providing
equal opportunities and level playing field for all players.
• Strengthen research and development efforts in the

country and provide an impetus to build world-class
manufacturing capabilities.
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Objectives
• Achieve efficiency and transparency in spectrum

management.
• Protect the defence & security interests of the country.
• Enable Indian Telecom Companies to become truly

global players.
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Targets
• Telephone on demand by the year 2002.
• Teledensity of 7 by the year 2005 and 15 by the year

2010.
• Development of telecom in rural areas, more affordable,

suitable tariff structure and making rural communication
mandatory for all fixed service providers.
• Increase rural teledensity from the current level of 0.4 to

4 by the year 2010, reliable transmission media in all
rural areas.
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Targets
• Achieve telecom coverage of all villages in the country

and provide reliable media to all exchanges by the year
2002.
• Internet access to all district head quarters by the year

2000.
• High speed data and multimedia capability using

technologies including ISDN to all towns with a
population greater than 2 lac by the year 2002.
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Impact of NTP-99 on Mobile
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March 2005 next generation messengers
BSNL
BSNL
• 1st October 2000 :Department created BSNL, a new

entity to operate services in different parts of the country
as a public sector unit.
• Grown to a network of over 45 million lines covering

5000 towns & over 35 million telephone connections.
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Telecom Services Market
% C ontribution to Telecom S ervice R evenue FY

2003
Wireline
3%
12% GSm
CDMA
18% 46%
Domestic Long
Distance
2% International Long
Distance
19% Data
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Switching Infrastructure
Other Private
Operators 16%
MTNL 10%
74% BSNL
¾Switching capacity of 60 million

fixed network
As on September 2003
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Transmission Infrastructure
Optical fibre base Microwave base

0.5 million route km 0.15 million route km
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India - An attractive and lucrative destination
S e c to rw is e in flo w o f T e le c o m F D I in %
0%
0% 4%
B a s ic T e le p h o n e S e rv ic e
C e llu la r M o b ile T ele p h o n e S e rv ic e
R a d io P a g in g S e rv ic e
24%
E -M a il S e rv ic e
V S A T S e rv ic e
C a b le T V N e tw o rk + In te rn e t
S a te llite T e lep h o n e S e rv ic e
51% R a d io T ru n k in g S e rv ic e
M a n u fa c tu rin g & C o n s u lta n c y

1%
H o ld in g C o m p an ie s
1%
O th e r V alu e A d d e d S e rv ic e s
0%
A u to m a tic R o u te
2%
1%
0%
16%
(1991-2003) FDI in Telecom US$ 2 billion

¾
20% of total FDI related to telecom
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2004
BROADBAND POLICY
Premeable
• Recognising the potential of ubiquitous Broadband

service in growth of GDP and enhancement in quality of
life through societal applications including tele-education,
tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment as well as
employment generation by way of high speed access to
information and web-based communication.
• High speed Internet access at 128 kbps is considered
as ‘Broadband’.
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Broadband Connectivity
• An ‘always-on’ data connection that is able to support
interactive services including Internet access and has
the capability of the minimum download speed of 256
kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber
from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service
provider.
• The interactive services will exclude any services for

which a separate licence is specifically required, for
example, real-time voice transmission, except to the
extent that it is presently permitted under ISP licence
with Internet Telephony.
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Broadband Subscribers
Year Ending Internet Broadband

Subscribers Subscribers
2005 6 million 3 million
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Technology Options
• Optical Fibre Technologies: 4.5 lakh route kms. of optical
fibre laid by BSNL / MTNL and more than 1 lakh route
kms laid by private operators.
• Digital Subscriber Lines(DSL) on copper loop :

Recognising that last mile copper loop is not a
‘bottleneck facility’ for broadband services, access
providers shall be free to enter into mutually agreed
commercial arrangements for utilization of available
copper loop for expansion of broadband services.
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Technology Options
• 40 million copper loops in the country available with

BSNL and MTNL out of which 14 million loops are in
rural areas.
• Management of BSNL and MTNL has decided to provide

1.5 million connections by the end of 2005.
• Cable TV Network: can be used as franchisee

network.
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Technology Options
• Of the service provider for provisioning Broadband

services.
• Satellite Media Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT)

and Direct-to-Home(DTH): services would be
encouraged for penetration of Broadband and Internet
services with the added advantage to serve remote and
inaccessible areas.
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Technology Options
• Terrestrial Wireless: 5.15-5.35 GHz band shall be de-

licensed for the indoor use of low power Wi-Fi
systems. For outdoor use, the band 5.25-5.35 GHz shall
be de-licensed in consultation with DoS and delicensing
in the band 5.15-5.25 GHz would be considered after the
process of vacation.
• Alternative spectrum bands which are not in high usage

and could be deployed for Broadband services.
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Urban & Rural Tele-density
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Mobile Subscriber base
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Fixed Subscribers Base
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PSU’s Operators Subscribers Base
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PSU’s Operators Subscribers base
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Private Operators Subscribers base
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Private Operators Subscribers base
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Average Revenue per User (ARPU)
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Revenue
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Tele-density Growth
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Tele-density Growth
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2006 & 2007
• 2006 was the year of dynamic growth for Telecom
Sector. New policies, rules, faces popped in and the
market saw a huge growth in terms of subscriber
additions. India surpassed China in monthly additions
and teledensity crossed the figure of 20.
• 2007 took from where 2006 ended and still the growth is
on as July 2007 was the highest subscriber addition in
world – 7.34 million.
• This we will include in our next part of Indian Telecom
History – Volume - 2.
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Courtesy
DOT
TRAI
VSNL
MTNL & BSNL
COAI
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THANK YOU
TELECOM INDIA DAILY
For more visit www.telecomindiaonline.com

For free daily newsletter subscription mail us at info@telecomindiaonline.com
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Indian Telecom History Volume-I

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INDIAN TELECOM HISTORY

• Dr. William O’Shaughnessy pioneered telegraph and

• 1854 :A regular, separate department was opened,

• 1854-57 : The Telegraph Department comprised a

• Three Deputy Superintendents at Bombay, Madras and

• This was the basic structure.

• Indo-European Telegraph Department, later known as

• 15th February, 1888 : merged with the Director-General

• April, 1925 : The accounts of the Indian Posts and

• The attempt was to find out the extent to which the

• 1st April, 1950 : In 1950 the number of Telephone

• The installed capacity of these 196 exchanges was

• Improve their technical efficiency by replacing obsolete

• January 1985 :two separate Departments for the Posts

• The accounts of the department, initially, were

• The Telecommunication Board consisted of the

• 1989 : The Telecom Commission was constituted.

• The Commission has the DoT Secretary as its

• The Secretary (Finance), Secretary (DoE), Secretary

• 1986 :Department reorganised the Telecommunication

• This was implemented in a phased manner.

• Bombay and Delhi Telephones were separated to create

NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

• Achieving universal service covering all villages as early

• The defence and security interests of the country will be

• Taking into account India's size and development, it is

• Lower than China (1.7), Pakistan (2), Malaysia (13).

• 8 million lines with a waiting list of about 2.5 million.

• All villages should be covered by 1997.

• Urban areas- PCO for every 500 persons by 1997.

• All value-added services available internationally should

• August, 1995 : GSM entered India.

• Historic first cell phone-call was made by MobileNet-

• Mobile revolution began in Kolkata.

• Handset costs-40,000 & Call tariff- 17 rs/min.

• January 1997 : TRAI was formed.

• To provide an effective regulatory framework and

• 1998 : First tariff order issued in –thus reforms effective

• Under Section 14 of the Act, the TRAI has full

• TRAI will be assigned the arbitration function for

NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

• Availability of affordable and effective communications

• Balance between universal service to all uncovered

• Development of telecommunication facilities in remote,

• Convert PCO’s, wherever justified, into Public Teleinfo

• Transform in a time bound manner, the

• Strengthen research and development efforts in the

• Achieve efficiency and transparency in spectrum

• Protect the defence & security interests of the country.

• Enable Indian Telecom Companies to become truly

• Teledensity of 7 by the year 2005 and 15 by the year

• Development of telecom in rural areas, more affordable,

• Increase rural teledensity from the current level of 0.4 to

• Achieve telecom coverage of all villages in the country

• Internet access to all district head quarters by the year

• High speed data and multimedia capability using

• 1st October 2000 :Department created BSNL, a new

• Grown to a network of over 45 million lines covering

% C ontribution to Telecom S ervice R evenue FY

¾Switching capacity of 60 million

Optical fibre base Microwave base

C e llu la r M o b ile T ele p h o n e S e rv ic e

M a n u fa c tu rin g & C o n s u lta n c y

(1991-2003) FDI in Telecom US$ 2 billion

MTNL & BSNL