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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cooters who wrote (31433)	1/20/2003 6:41:15 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Respond to of 196628

Talking terms The Indian Express 1/21/03 Finally, there’s a ceasefire in the telecom sector. But why does it need a minister? Disputes between competing lobbies in various sectors of industry are not uncommon. What is probably unique to India is that despite regulators and dispute settlement tribunals, it takes politicians to play referee between warring business lobbies. Take the latest talking point that left most cell and fixed line users unable to talk to each other. The war that erupted between cellular operators and limited mobility wireless in local loop (WLL) operators snowballed last Friday when Pramod Mahajan, minister for telecommunication, was away selling e-governance to Egypt and South Africa. Ironically, although the battle was between cellular operators and WLL players, with the former denying connectivity to the newcomers over a dispute involving access charges, it was the government-run telecom operators, BSNL and MTNL, that cut the cord. This is not as strange as it sounds. Cell players have been paying access charges for putting their subscribers’ calls through to MTNL and BSNL, but dug in their heels when it came to coughing up the same to private WLL players since the latter have the advantage of lower tariffs and are inching towards full mobility, posing a real threat to them. This is where the government telcos came into the picture since they were intending to act as intermediary carriers for private WLL operators’ calls to cellular networks. When cell operators protested, both MTNL and BSNL cut them off with the minister in the loop all along. Industry insiders were expecting Mahajan’s return on Monday to end the logjam and the minister did not disappoint. Short of telling the cellular lobby to put up or shut up, he did soften up and assure them, on behalf of the autonomous regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), that it would come out with its guidelines on access charges and interconnect. The cell industry’s growing discomfort with the minister’s proximity to at least one large WLL player did increase greatly on Monday, but its constituents bought their peace and agreed to sign interconnect agreements even as they await TRAI guidelines. From the user’s perspective, this should signal the rollout of the Reliance and Tata cheap WLL mobile services that have been on hold despite their big bang launches for want of access to the one crore cellular user base. With full mobility a not-too-distant prospect for WLL operators, it will also mean the end of the cellular lobby’s long reign. This could be the beginning of a churn that may see an exodus from cell to WLL operators. indianexpress.com © 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world.