Chennai: The newly appointed Director General of Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) S P Kochhar told PTI that any duopoly situation in the current three-player private telcos market can “never be a good thing” and asserted that sufficient competition among the operators is required for ensuring that subscribers get good services at better prices.
The COAI will continue to be a neutral body that believes in consensus building and unanimity of views, Kochhar said when asked about past differences amongst the telecom companies, who are members of the association, on various issues.
“COAI tries to get the point of view of all members unanimously and we make sure whenever we project to any authority whether in government or regulatory, we do it as unanimous voice, we are not partisan…,” he said.
Kochhar said that industry’s financial distress is “evident” and that the COAI will continue to push for relief including reduction in spectrum usage charges (SUC) and licence fee; and exemption of GST on licence fee and SUC, as well as on payment of spectrum acquired in auctions. On whether, the telecom industry is headed towards a duopoly, Kochhar spoke in favour of competition saying, “at the end of the day, general public should get benefits of telecom and that will not happen in case of a duopoly”.
It is in the interest of the country that duopoly does not come in and “we have more competition, so better services at better prices can be offered to subscribers”, he said. The industry’s revenue, Kochhar said, will grow at 14-15 per cent in FY21, led by some improvement in average revenue per user (ARPU).
