Indian Telecom Industry in 2014; hits and misses

india-telecom20142014 has been a significant year for the Indian Telecom market and it has given reasons both to rejoice and despair to the different stakeholders in the industry. We take a look at how the year was for the customers and the operators and how different regulations have impacted the industry.

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Reasons for Customers to Rejoice:

4G Launch: Airtel launched 4G services thus putting India on the 4G map. Though the services are not available in all cities, Airtel is slowing expanding. Recently Airtel even reduced the prices of 4G to match that of 3G which analysts said could be due to expected launch of RJio.

Clarity on MNP: Government has set a deadline of May 2015 by when the operators need to implement full mobile number portability. This will bring a lot of relief to the customers who would be saved from the hassle of changing numbers whenever they change locations.

Defining download speeds: In another move, TRAI has mandated a minimum download speed of 1 Mbps for 3G and 56Kbps for 2G services. This has helped to keep the minimum speeds in check, a reason for customers to be happy.

VAS Activation: TRAI has cracked down on the operators for unlawful activation of VAS and has directed operators to seek consumer consent before activation of VAS.

Reasons for customers to despair:

Tariff rise: Various operators increased the tariffs for data without intimating the post-paid customers. For pre-paid customers, operators either increased the prices directly or reduced the validity of plans resulting in indirect increase in the price. Voice tariffs were also increased.

Loop mobile closure: Due to the slow death of Loop mobile, customers were left in soup with no clarity or sufficient support to get their numbers ported. This could have been avoided had DoT acted smartly as per the need of the hour.