COAI says telecom business financially burdened; seeks govt assist on key challenges

The telecom business, which facilitated wide-spread digital adoption through the pandemic, continues to be financially burdened and seeks authorities assist on points like liquidity, rationalisation of levies, AGR and spectrum pricing, in accordance with COAI.
The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), in its outlook for 2021, mentioned 5G launch is predicted within the later a part of the 12 months.
The know-how is poised to open up a plethora of prospects within the context of enterprise fashions, higher schooling, healthcare, good cities, good manufacturing, and clever logistics, S P Kochhar, Director General of COAI mentioned in a press release.
“However, industry continues to be financially stressed and we seek the support of the government in enabling the industry to truly play its role as an enabler of horizontal growth and a boost to the nation’s economy,” Kochhar mentioned.
Listing out the highest challenges confronted by its member telecom corporations, COAI mentioned these relate to liquidity, rationalisation of the regulatory levies, Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) points, spectrum pricing, Right of Way (RoW) guidelines, and cell tower radiation.
“COAI has been pressing the government and TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) on these,” Kochhar added.
Like every other sector, the telecom business too was impacted by the pandemic with a pointy fall within the variety of subscribers in March and April. However, as enterprise and people adopted digital methods, telecom business emerged as a “saviour”.
Many telecom gamers have benefitted from a surge within the site visitors of information and voice, resulting from which the telecom sector is performing properly as in comparison with different infrastructure sub-sectors, he mentioned.
In the primary quarter of this fiscal 12 months by means of June, buyer spending on voice and information companies elevated 16.6 per cent year-on-year, amounting to Rs 35,642 crore (USD 4.80 billion).
The development of information companies was primarily triggered by means of over-the-top or OTT platforms for voice communications, chat, on-line conferences, webinars, leisure, amongst others.

“With the focus on AtmaNirbhar Bharat, revenue from the telecom equipment sector is expected to grow to USD 26.38 billion by 2020,” mentioned the business physique, whose members embody Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
“The number of internet subscribers in the country is expected to double by 2021 to 829 million and overall IP traffic (Internet Protocol traffic or web traffic) is expected to grow four-fold at a CAGR of 30 per cent by 2021,” it added.