10 years of NDA | Satellite communications, which plays a huge role in connecting regions has not developed as fast as it needed to

In this special episode of the businessline Podcast where we are reviewing the performance of NDA government in the last 10 years, we are looking at the telecom sector. The Telecom sector in India has seen phenomenal changes including shift from 2G to 4G with the launch of Reliance Jio, BharatNet, OTT services, new Telecom Bill to successful launch of 5G services. businessline spoke to Mahesh Uppal, a renowned sector expert and currently the Director of Com First (India), who said that while there is a fair amount of incremental improvement in the regulatory environment like licensing fee and rights of way, remote and rural areas are still struggling with connectivity, data speed and Internet access. Also, the licensing regime is not particularly friendly when it comes to small players or players who want to deal with these markets. Similarly, support for technology like satellite communications, which have a huge role to play in connecting those regions has also not gone as fast as it needed to be. And, despite being a major player in space industry across the world, India still doesn’t have a significant space communications market. He also said that the entry of Reliance Jio has a major impact on both the number of players, which reduced to only four in the market as well as the prices of services and expansion of 4G and broadband.