"Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data" -Kapil Sibal

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today said the mobile phone operators must move from voice- based revenue model and customers should gradually be charged only for data services and not for making calls.

"At the moment, revenue of industry depends on voice, it is time that the industry decides to move in a direction where revenues come from data and not from voice," Sibal said while speaking at CII broadband summit.

He said the operators need to change their mindset by moving away from voice services to data.

"The mindset of industry must change. So far the telecom sector has been thinking in terms of earning revenues from voice connectivity (phone calls). If you ask me, and I hope secretary (telecom) agrees with me, that infact there should be no charge on voice," Sibal added.

"The industry must move in that direction (making voice free) so that in years to come, talking to each other should not be taxed. There should be no charge for talking to each other," he said.

Sibal said broadband is fundamental to people's needs and should be seen how it can contribute to empower their life.

"The real challenge is to help people, even those who are illiterate, to access information for their personal empowerment," he said.

The government is investing around Rs 35,000 crore on various broadband related projects which will create a secondary market of around Rs 3 lakh crore, Sibal added.

Talking about Rs 20,000 crore national broadband plan, Sibal said, "By December 2013 (optical) fibre cable will be laid".

He also said the DoT will soon approach Cabinet to seek approval for manufacturing five million 'Akash-2' tablets in the country.

Source

What do you guys think?

Any thing that comes for free loses it's value. People will start overusing it and it will only lead to more congestion etc. The nominal charges we have as of now are more than adequate.

As for data is concerned, the prices really need to come down for that.

I agree with u @sarath .

Sarath said:
Any thing that comes for free loses it's value. People will start overusing it and it will only lead to more congestion etc. The nominal charges we have as of now are more than adequate.

As for data is concerned, the prices really need to come down for that.

+1, @Sarath a good logical explanation.

Prices obviously should come down by 2020...!!!???

Seriously whats wrong with this Sibal?

The spam we receive via calls will increase 100 fold

Charge for voice, Make data free.

I second that. :lol:

gameranand said:
Charge for voice, Make data free.

Yeahh! that would be awesome! then data will be misued. you wont get stable speeds in 3G

long term planning
you can call it leap frog planning
it's a way of skipping over what everyone else is doing right now, and going directly to the next set of protocols and standards
might be waay too progressive for us, but it is a bold statement, at least that is what the telecom operators must be aiming for
for consumers, data problems will continue till the data and channels are controlled by groups of companies. the cable guys, the dth guys, the broadcast peeps, the movie guys, the music guys and the telecom operators should come together, decide what bandwidth to use on what channels (air, copper cables, fiber optic, satellites etc), only then will the consumers get the cheapest prices, over the most economical channels
the connection and bandwidth is not a problem, the problems are entirely cosmetic, because these people are holding out on the channels they have control over

I don't think that's gonna happen in this decade or even the next, the number of subscribers using data is minuscule compared to voice usage. 10-15% use data the rest only use voice. first of all ask sibal to define broadband as 1mbps and above.

I pay 1ps/2sec for all local calls and get 100 SMSes daily with no strings attached (like 1st call or 1st sms charged, etc). So I'm more than happy with the call rates today (I'm on aircel). But what is important is connectivity, signal quality and bandwitdh. These areas need improvement and I hope telecom companies focus on these areas.

are yaar leave free calls and improvement in mobile internet speed first we want improvement in Broadband speeds.till what time we can live with these pathetic speeds.about those call prices, sarath was right.free calling dosn't makes sense, now we are getting good deal and we should enjoy it.looks like kapil sibal pays lots of phone bill thats why he is giving statement like these :wink:

He wont actually pay for what he use. :-D

That is why these types of decisions even sees light.

There should be a way to regulate the data charges. as of now they are charging a bomb for 3g and that too with crap FUP limits.

sukesh1090 said:
are yaar leave free calls and improvement in mobile internet speed first we want improvement in broadband speeds.till what time we can live with these pathetic speeds.about those call prices, sarath was right.free calling dosn't makes sense, now we are getting good deal and we should enjoy it.looks like kapil sibal pays lots of phone bill thats why he is giving statement like these

^^ this.

I

Nor voice neither data should be free as they will surely in the long run will lead to an Paradoxical situation with no step back. however, In the Indian context, Telecom companies excluding minor one and CDMA based operator should lower their data charges as to maintain efficient equilibrium with the money we spend and the service they are providing.
also, Its been quite a time we have seen 3G Service covering major Indian cities and towns but STILL I'm yet to see any reduce in their 3G plans pricing model nor there are any UNLIMITED DATA PLAN for the same but traditional broadband speed which is lame to modern computing where there is a need of greater bandwidth we are still in someplace using dial up and mobile EDGE/GPRS to be honest. because an average individual cannot bother to pay higher price they set aside.

and now I hereby appeal to our Telecom Minister a.k.a. ex education minister to please ask operators to reduce the plan pricing on their Broadband and 3G models as It will help being India globalized in real sense.

Thanks for consideration

3g lol, not required... cant think of a current mobile application that needs such kind of connectivity, streaming vids, music, multiplayer gaming, all work flawlessly without a 3g connection... thinking that we need such connectivity is part of the problem, 4G LTE is over the top brainless, preparation for services that are likely never to be introduced, say subscribing broadcast quality HBO with just your phone
this is for legal use, and not for files you may generate as part of your job obviously, which is a diff category of connectivity requirements, and should be addressed as such, otherwise these problems will continue forever
mostly all this 3D and high bandwidth and 4G is planning for 3dtv (and video) to become the de facto standard, which may never happen, people might just like good old non 3d television better, especially when they are barely looking at it

R

When will we reach this level?

These LTE speeds will make you cry | Dialed In - CNET Blogs

Never gonna happen ..

Sibal Stupid ...
First he announced roaming free from 2013 after which telecom experts said operator will hike call rates upto 40%..
Now not any operator charging 1 paise/scnd widout any stvs..

Sibal should think on average Broadband speed n coverage instead of these foolish things,, he should tell private operators to implement gud Fup based 3g/4g/Cdma Highspeed plans
and think abt minmum speed abt fup.. what the hell can be done with 113kbps on photon after fup ends

Sibal should b thinking to implement free voice calling n charging 10 inr/10kb :-?

How on earth will the telco's recover their investment?? AFAIK even now in most countries incoming calls are also charged!!

Re: "Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data" -Kapil Sibal

funskar said:
Sibal Stupid ...
First he announced roaming free from 2013 after which telecom experts said operator will hike call rates upto 40%..

I hope Sibal is not seeing this! :lol:

Everything in the digital world, is a DATA. Even the voice calls we make , is a set of DATA.
Sibal should order these telecoms to provide 2Mbps as the basic internet plan for all!

2012 > India-the largest IT Outsourcing hub > Developing country ----So many garland words for India,
Yet some of us are using pathetic 256kbps broadband connections!

I guess, Sibal forgot about monitoring social medias.

Anorion said:
streaming vids, music, multiplayer gaming, all work flawlessly without a 3g connection.

How? 720p can be streamed without 3g ?

^if I wanna play a video on YouTube, I can play it, dont care if the site is sending it to me in HD or not
anyway, tried 3G for a month on my iPhone 3GS, no 3G is def better than 3G, speedtests used to ping out or get stuck on uploading, had more problems connecting when moving in a train, and a lot of time it just said that a connection to the internet could not be established. get rid of 3G and boom! everything was working again. Vodafone

Dear Kapil Sibal, Affordable Internet in India My foot.
Basic Broadband(512kbps UL) Only Starts from Rs.550 after Recent Tax Hike and If you speak like this 1Gb 2Gdata will be 150Bucks.

can think of some applications. all of it is video though... skype, vidcasts
more stable over wi-fi connections anyway, and wi-fi is surprisingly freely available in more places than 3g probably, especially if you are roaming, these are life savers (not just talking about unsecured home connections, public places, institutions, hotels all have this now)

basically even though 3G is here, it is not used as such because most app / web app developers are paralysed by the bandwidth constraints of no 3G

Re: "Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data" -Kapil Sibal

Gearbox said:
I hope Sibal is not seeing this!

Everything in the digital world, is a DATA. Even the voice calls we make , is a set of DATA.
Sibal should order these telecoms to provide 2Mbps as the basic internet plan for all!

2012 > India-the largest IT Outsourcing hub > Developing country ----So many garland words for India,
Yet some of us are using pathetic 256kbps broadband connections!

I guess, Sibal forgot about monitoring social medias.

I want sibal to see this re..

Sibal said on tv while introucing new telecom policies 2-3months before that we have 256kbps broadband which is best in all aspect n we will upgrade to 2mbps till 2015..
Stupid sibal doesn't know in 2015 2mbps will behave like 256kbps..

I don't understand what the **** sachin pilot is doing in ministry of telecommunication ..

Sibal is getting free data download speed & voice calls :lol:

Re: &quot;Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data&quot; -Kapil Sibal

funskar said:
I want sibal to see this re..

Sibal said on tv while introucing new telecom policies 2-3months before that we have 256kbps broadband which is best in all aspect n we will upgrade to 2mbps till 2015..
Stupid sibal doesn't know in 2015 2mbps will behave like 256kbps..

I don't understand what the **** sachin pilot is doing in ministry of telecommunication ..

I think, he doesnt even know the difference between kBps and kbps!
Our govt. should elect executives based on the discipline they've undertaken!
I don't know what's Sibal's UG or PG degree! Anyone know?

Thats the only way, an officer can know about his in-and-out's of his department.

Zangetsu said:
Sibal is getting free data download speed & voice calls

Absolutely, all the members of parliment have that kind of free-stuffs, coz THEY'RE WORKING FOR THE WELFARE OF PEOPLE. (serious pun intended)

lol 2mbps
hopefully by 2015, people will have all their data on the cloud
internet available 24*7 without even a millisecond delay is a bigger concern than bandwidth really
that little while the Internet is not there affects a lot more than the restrictions of the bandwidth, surely one of the reasons why people are not getting comfortable with cloud apps
What Sibal is saying is gonna happen anyway, this is not that voice will get cheaper, it won't, it's just that data will get costlier, because increasingly your phone will have to be always connected to the interwebs, and the tubes will eventually be more demanding than the voice streams
video-calling is already charged by data no ?

V

Anorion said:
video-calling is already charged by data no ?

Vodafone still charges me for video-calls on per minute basis only. Don't know about other operators.

Good idea, thought in bad way. (lack of knowledge etc.)

Sibal should make 3G unlimited first...first of all...ditch that crappy FUP policy from INDIA...and about that voice calls... at least start making SMSes free from now...then only think about Voice calls.
and define 3G as minimum 3.6Mbps...not 2 Mbps which im getting now...and define broadband as 2Mbps and above...bloody hell...INDIA is still having 512Kbps speed...whereas Koreans are downloading at minimum 5Mbps.

4G scam bi ho jayega next year mei.

E

Thank you for sharing!
*www.forexbrokercomparison.info/kv.gif

A

Hi,

That's very true what he is doing in telecommunication ?, cool point funskar

RON28 said:
Sibal should make 3G unlimited first

That's our mentality. Say reasonable FUP, not the word unlimited. You can't get anything of unlimited amount while paying limited amount of money.

^ Well said. Anything in excess will surely do bad and used unmorally!
They've to set the bar higher for 2G to have atleast 2Mbps as the basic.

That's the least expectation on Indian subscribers.

Re: "Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data" -Kapil Sibal

d6bmg said:
That's our mentality. Say reasonable FUP, not the word unlimited. You can't get anything of unlimited amount while paying limited amount of money.

Yeah.. there should v reasonable fup data like 20-25gb for 1k n 256kbps speed from there on..
Bt ****in photon blaze n 3g givin 5gb ul fro 1k afterwards 113kbps...

Gearbox said:
I think, he doesnt even know the difference between kBps and kbps!
Our govt. should elect executives based on the discipline they've undertaken!
I don't know what's Sibal's UG or PG degree! Anyone know?

Thats the only way, an officer can know about his in-and-out's of his department.

Siball nowadays busy wid his two wives in arihant importers slutter house business..
Someone should crack the balls of sibal then he will know the pain of 256kbps bb :cry:

Gearbox said:
^ Well said. Anything in excess will surely do bad and used unmorally!
They've to set the bar higher for 2G to have atleast 2Mbps as the basic.

That's the least expectation on Indian subscribers.

theoretically 2G means 236Kbps speed...not 2Mbps...Indians know that.

Well somehow its a great news but at the same time it has some diverse effect too. Like above my friend's said that connectivity and bandwidth should be more precisely concerned instead of all this and i agree with this.
Last month i heard a news that from 2013 roaming call charges will be finished that's something i really appreciate. But making call almost for free is like opening a bank locker with full of cash for public.
I would recommend that this scheme is good enough for future, but for now it's better they guys should take good care of their network connectivity instead!

Hey mere bhagwaan kya hoga mere Bharat ka. Arey yaar koi mujhe hi TC minister bna do. Saala main 4 saal se 512 kbps pe atka hua hu or mere NRI friends 2 mbps se start hokar 14 mbps tak pahunch gaye.

increase voice charge, decrease data charges. best of both worlds.

Lalit Kishore said:
Last month i heard a news that from 2013 roaming call charges will be finished that's something i really appreciate.

Don't bcom over joyd..
Roaming will become free but 40-60% hike in call rates will take place as said by Te's.

Sibal was sutpid, idiot n now he has bcom totally mental after opening arihant importers[slaughter house] :evil: