Regulatory bottlenecks in the expansion of wireless Internet in India

Abstract

The Indian telecommunication market is the second largest in the world and is growing rapidly. It is evident from national reportsa published by the TRAI that the urban markets are getting saturated and that there is a lot of potential and demand in rural areas. Given this situation, the thesis analyses four hypotheses as regulatory bottlenecks in the expansion of wireless Internet in India: (i) Licensed spectrum is scarce (ii) Low spectrum holdings is a bottleneck for the diffusion of wireless network across the country (iii) Market concentration of an operator is a bottleneck for the expansion of wireless network across the country (iv) The regulator is not providing sufficient incentives for the growth of community networks.

To address the hypotheses, we analyze the availability and utilization of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. To estimate the scarcity of licensed spectrum, we calculate the spectrum availability per subscriber(Hz). To examine the utilization of unlicensed spectrum, we perform case studies on community network projects.

The thesis aims to conclude the following results through the aforementioned analysis and study: (i) Licensed spectrum is scarce. (ii) Competition among the operators has a higher impact on the market penetration. (iii) Community network operators is a bottom-up approach but might not initially solve the problems caused by the spectrum scarcity in the expansion of wireless Internet in India. (iv) Policy recommendations for efficient use of spectrum allocation and especially to increase the utilization of unlicensed spectrum.