Just a couple of days before the government took the decision to reconstitute Trai, Trai chairman Justice Sodhi spoke with Akash Joshi of the FE-Thinktank about the telecom industry.Some excerpts.

Currently, there exists a large demand-supply gap in the Indian telecom industry. Besides the New Telecom policy, what other measures do you think are required to bridge this gap?

At the current juncture, there are a number issues pending government decision. Recently, we sent our recommendations on what the revenue share for radio paging and GMPCS services should be. We have now sent recommendations for the opening up of the local long distance market too. Right now we are in the process of settling the revenue share stalement for the cellular operators.

We will then look at the universal service levy issue. One of the main objectives of the telecom policy is to ensure that the telephone network is available to one and all. It's not where everybody should have a telephone, but that everybody should have access to a telephone.

This requires huge investments for which we require to have a universal service fund. We would like to set up this fund by imposing a levy on all the service operators, including the DoT and the MTNL. This will enable us to take telecommunications to the remote and rural areas. It will also enable us to provide affordable services.

Allied to this is the issue regarding quality of service. It's very important that consumers get the quality of service promised to them. The plethora of rules and regulations that enumerate the type of service a consumer is likely to get is the moment only on paper. What the actual state of affairs is is common knowledge.

Now therefore when we are looking at this aspect of quality of service, we are also looking at an implementation mechanism. No use having rules and regulations and a book unless there is some authority to oversee implementation of the same. We have been working on installing an ombudsman

What exactly is an ombudsman?
This idea has been borrowed from Australia. In Australia, any complaint made to an ombudsman means that the operator in question (whether the complaint is genuine or not), has to pay a fine of $25. The ombudsman sees that the company is reworked and, if there is undue delay the ombudsman sees to it that the subscriber is adequately compensated.

We want to introduce two aspects: implementation and accountability. We would like the subscriber, denied the service, to get adequately compensated.

It has been witnessed that the convergence factor has changed the way companies have been operating. How will it affect India?
Convergence has been attracting government attention. If you recall, the government has set up a new ministry called the ministry of information and technology. This ministry is looking into all the issues concerning the convergence phenomena.

However, clear policy has yet take shape. Nevertheless, work on the same is on at top speed. Very soon we will have a policy on convergence in place.

Where do you think are investments in the telecom sector headed for? Would they still be skewed in favour of the cellular industry?
I envisage a steep fall in the cellular prices in the coming years. Worldwide the trend is for cellular now to outstrip basis services connections.The only thing stopping it is are rates. But the rates are going to fall and that too dramatically.

And when competition is established here we will see that happening in India as well. And I don't think that this day is far away

There is much talk about alternative technologies being a panacea for the industry -- the VSAT technology, etc. But many players belonging to this group have been complaining of inverted policies. What do you have to say about their grouse?
Well, there definitely exist certain policy issues that need to be looked into. But as you are aware, technology is fast changing so much so it is very difficult to picture the 'morrow scenario.

However, one thing is certain things in the future will only be better and much cheaper. So, there is hope for the consumer.