National Telecom Policy-2012 and Unified Licensing Regime

[Source: PIB Press Release dated 31 May 2012]

The Union Cabinet on 31 May approved the National Telecom Policy -2012 (NTP - 2012).

The Cabinet also approved introduction of Unified Licence and authorised the Department of Telecommunications to finalise the new Unified Licensing regime with the approval of Minister of Communications & IT. The salient features of the National Telecom Policy-2012 are as follows:

The policy envisions providing secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere for an accelerated inclusive socio-economic development. The main thrust of the Policy is on the multiplier effect and transformational impact of such services on the overall economy. The thrust areas of NTP - 2012 are;

• Increase rural teledensity from the current level of around 39 to 70 by the year 2017 and 100 by the year 2020

• Repositioning of Mobile phone- as an instrument of empowerment

• Broadband –“'Broadband For All” at a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps

• Domestic Manufacturing- Making India a global hub

• Convergence of Network, Services and Devices

• Liberalisation of Spectrum- any Service in any Technology

• Simplification of Licensing regime- Unified Licensing, delinking of Spectrum from License, Online real time submission and processing

• Consumer Focus - Achieve One Nation - Full Mobile Number Portability and work towards One Nation - Free Roaming

• Resale of Services

• Voice over Internet Protocol

• Cloud Computing, Next Generation Network including IPV6

The policy seeks to provide a predictable and stable policy regime for a period of about ten years. Policy will be operationalised by bringing out detailed guidelines, as may be considered appropriate, from time to time. Implementation will enable smooth implementation of the policies for providing an efficient telecommunication infrastructure taking into account the primary objective of maximizing public good by empowering the people of India. The policy will further enable taking suitable facilitatory measures to encourage existing service providers to rapidly migrate to the new regime in a uniformly liberalised environment with a level playing field.