DoT secretary urges on need for holistic converged regulation

Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan urged on the need for a holistic converged regulation that will propel the telecom sector to keep pace with technological advancements and bring in more reforms.

“We have to look at merged governance. We will increasingly have to look at things holistically. Meity, principal scientific advisor and the DoT along with regulator -we are looking at a much more holistic converged regulation,” said Sundararajan at the ET Telecom India Mobile Conclave 2019.

The secretary also stressed on the need to work with smaller players and local startups who are on the rise because of developments like 5G, IoT, augmented reality.

“While we have seen consolidation and exits we are also seeing, we are also seeing hyper competition amongst a small set of players. With new startups coming in, in areas around data, IoT, blockchain, these are promising developments,” the secretary added.

The secretary of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) chalked out the reforms that have been brought in including relief on spectrum payments, easing of double taxation amongst others.

Sundararajan emphasised that existing players need to adapt to the pace of change and harness the new age technology in a way that makes sense. “Advent of new technology like 5G and the transformation that all these are promising. These are not just new generation of the same old technology but they are whole new technology. It is not easy to predict how they impact, we will get only glimpses,” she added.