After several rounds of discussions, the National Telecom Policy (NTP) has been approved by the cabinet with a few minor changes, say news reports.
This comes after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) addressed the various concerns raised by the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Commerce and the Space Department in this context.
It is believed that as per the approved policy, spectrum has been de-linked from licenses and liberal mergers and acquisition norms have been given the go-ahead.
The NPT also reportedly permits sharing of airwaves among carriers and seeks to facilitate consolidation in the hyper-competitive telecom market. However, the NPT does not provide any guidelines on the pricing of airwaves, which will be determined via an open auction process.
The concept of One Nation, One Licence has also been retained in the newly approved NTP. This would enable users to avail of free roaming and retain their phone numbers even if they switch operators anywhere in the country. As per the new policy, tariff differential between local and STD calls will cease to exist. The policy also supports number portability for users.
With the aim of promoting broadband uptake in the country, the NTP aims to provide ?on demand? broadband for all and it is looking at increasing rural teledensity to 100 per cent by 2020.
However, the policy does not specify a timeline by which these measures will be implemented.
