Broadband Penetration to Reach 600 Million by 2020 : R Chandrasekhar at CII Media n Entertainment Summit

CII: Oct 30, 2012The government is taking proactive steps for enhancing the broadband penetration in the country from the present level of 20 million to 600 million by 2020 so as to cover the entire breadth and length of the country.

While mentioning this at the CII-Media Entertainment Summit 2012 titled India-The Big Picture, Mr R Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Information Technology and Chairman Telecom Commission said that the government was investing Rs 20,000 crore over the next few years for strengthening the broadband network in the country. In its wake, such massive investment would give a boost to the digitization, cloud based services and convergence to reach out to the common man in the far flung areas. The government’s role, he stressed, would be that of a facilitator and the last mile movers would be cable and telecom service providers.

Mr Chandrasekhar opined that the digital space would undergo a radical change and the spin-offs to the common man would be substantial in terms of toning up health services, education, and entertainment. Also, availing the cost of such services would be much reduced on account of convergence. There will be emergence of different type of new services. The phenomenal growth of digitization in tier 3 and tier 4 for towns amplifies the potential of the digital landscape that can encompass the whole of India.

Mr Chandrasekhar pointed out some of the concerns in the digital space, which have to be addressed at the earliest. Regulation of carriage fee, protection of IPR and copy rights, piracy etc remains to be grey areas. Legislation is needed for regulating the carriage fee. Yet another challenge is to make available digital equipment at affordable prices to the common man.

Speaking at the Session on Policy Conundrum, Dr Rahul Khullar, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) stressed the need for having a separate regulator for content instead of having separate institutions to regulate them, which leads to a lot of confusion. Answering a volley of questions from the audience, he said that all stakeholders in the media should come together to sort out the problems before coming to the regulator. Once the government seizes up with the issues and problems every aspect has to be looked into, consultations have to be made among various nodal ministries, court cases have to be taken into cognizance before arriving at a decision, which he said was time consuming.

Responding to a query from the floor that documentary segment was, by and large, ignored by the government and incentives should be extend to this fragile segment, Dr Khullar said that it was a matter of policy and the aggrieved should approach the government and not the regulator. Regarding pricing of content, which a section complaint was heavily lauded against them, he said that once the carriage issue was being sorted out, pricing also could be resolved. However, he pointed out that it would be better the industry sort out the issue on their own and leave the regulator for sorting out other vexatious issues.

The industry leaders, who participated at the session titled “The Game Changers: Taking M&E industry to US$ 100 billion” concurred that the target set by CII-PWC study that the M&E sector could gross at US$ 100 billion was achievable. They had given their differing perceptions as to how these could be achievable. Mr Manjit Singh, CEO, Sony Entertainment television maintained that advertisement and subscription income from media business should be at a 50:50 basis and a business model based on these parameters would help penetration of broadband, inflow of more FDI and the government would stand to gain from realization of more taxes. The ratio of TV advertisement to GDP in India is abysmally poor as compared to developed countries and hoped that the stress on subscription would give a sustainable and healthy revenue stream to the media business.

Mr Bharat N Anand, professor, Harvard Business School in his presentation stressed that digitization per se would not guarantee steady and healthy revenue scheme and innovative packages have to be drawn up to bolster revenue such as offering complementarities along with subscriptions etc. as is the practice in some of the western countries. He also stressed the need for strict action against piracy, sincee it accounted for close to 20 per cent losses to the industry.

Ms SmithaJha, Leader, Entertainment & Media practice, PWC India, quoting from the report prepared for the CII summit observed that the game changers in the media industry would be advertisement, subscription and infrastructure and policy framework. In India, she said that the consumer spends only US $ 7 per month as subscription as against US$ 500 in the US. Also, to help industry to achieve the potential, infrastructure has to be toned up, such as rolling out of 3G and 4 G coupled with strengthening broadband net -work.

Mr Anil Kapoor, Actor stressed need for focusing on content export, a sector, which had received only minimal attention. He said that India had a repertoire of artists and content writers, who can focus on global market and cater to them.

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