GSMA opens office in India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Optimistic about policy and regulatory roadmap in India, GSMA, which represents mobile operators worldwide, today announced the opening of its office in New Delhi.

It also believes that mobile broadband in India is poised to grow and would become the second largest market in the world. GSMA also said that service provision in rural areas help bridge the digital divide. With mobile broadband technologies such as HSPA and LTE coming in, the industry is all set to boom further, it said.

“India is taking great strides towards the uptake of data and is the third largest Internet subscriber base in the world,” said Sanjay Kapoor, CEO (South Asia), Bharti Airtel and chairman of COAI. The data, he said, will move northwards that would help other industries to flourish. “Broadband will reshape the business prospects of other industries such as commerce, health and education,” Kapoor said.

GSMA said it opened base in India as it is the fastest growing market in the world.

“Since HSPA is growing at a rapid pace, it's set to be the largest market by 2014, ahead of the US,” said Annie Bouverot, director general of GSMA.

She said that they support India’s regulatory framework, and there should be a fair and transparent process to allocate spectrum. She believes that policies should be created to attract investment. On policy uncertainty in India, Bouverot commented, “There is no perfect environment across the world, but the government and regulators in India should facilitate predictable environment.”

Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kapania said that India is now on the cusp of another tectonic shift that could happen if harmonized spectrum is released that would ensure affordable and high speed broadband services.