The beginning Prof.
S. P. Chakravarti is known as the father of electronics and
telecommunications engineering in India. He started electronics and telecommunications education, training and research in India. Telecommunications in India began with the introduction of the
Telegraphy. The Indian postal and telecom sectors are one of the world's oldest. In 1850, the first experimental electric telegraph line was started between
Kolkata and
Diamond Harbour. In 1851, it was opened for the use of the
East India Company. The Posts and Telegraphs department occupied a small corner of the Public Works Department at that time. The construction of of telegraph lines was started in November 1853. These connected Kolkata (then Calcutta) and
Peshawar in the north;
Agra,
Mumbai (then Bombay) through Sindwa Ghats, and
Chennai (then Madras) in the south;
Ooty and
Bangalore.
William O'Shaughnessy, who pioneered the
Telegraphy and telephone in India, belonged to the Public Works Department, and worked towards the development of telecom throughout this period. A separate department was opened in 1854 when telegraph facilities were opened to the public. In 1880, two telephone companies, namely the
Oriental Telephone Company Ltd. and the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd. approached the
Government of India to establish a
telephone exchange in India. Permission was refused on the grounds that the establishment of telephone networking was a government monopoly and that the government itself should undertake the work. In 1881, the government later reversed its earlier decision and a licence was granted to the
Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England for opening telephone exchanges at
Kolkata,
Mumbai,
Chennai and
Ahmedabad and the first formal telephone service was established in the country. On 28 January 1882, Major E. Baring, Member of the
Governor General of India's Council declared open the Telephone Exchanges in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The exchange in Calcutta named the "Central Exchange" had a total of 93 subscribers in its early stage. Later that year, Bombay also witnessed the opening of a telephone exchange.
Further developments and milestones • 1901 – First
wireless telegraph station established between
Sagar Island and
Sandhead. • Pre-1902 –
Cable telegraph. • 1907 – First Central Battery of telephones introduced in
Kanpur. • 1913–1914 – First Automatic Exchange installed in
Shimla. • 1927 – Radio-telegraph system between the UK and India, with
Imperial Wireless Chain beam stations at
Khadki and
Daund. Inaugurated by
Lord Irwin on 23 July by exchanging greetings with
King George V. • 1933 –
Radiotelephone system inaugurated between the UK and India. • 1947 - First
Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering department started in India at the
Government Engineering College, Jabalpur. • 1951 - First TV transmitter of India was installed at the
Government Engineering College, Jabalpur, on 24 October. • 1975 – First
PCM system commissioned between
Mumbai City and
Andheri telephone exchanges. • 1976 – First
digital microwave junction. • 1979 – First
optical fibre system for local junction commissioned at
Pune. • 1980 – First
satellite earth station for domestic communications established at
Sikandarabad,
U.P. • 1983 – First
analogue Stored Programme Control exchange for
trunk lines commissioned at Mumbai. • 1984 –
C-DOT established for indigenous development and production of
digital exchanges. • 1995 – First
mobile telephone service started on non-commercial basis on 15 August 1995 in
Delhi. • 1995 – Internet Introduced in India starting with Laxmi Nagar, Delhi 15 August 1995 • 2020 – The PM-WANI framework envisages provision of Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Hotspot providers.
Development of Broadcasting: Radio broadcasting was initiated in 1927 but became state responsibility only in 1930. In 1937 it was given the name
All India Radio and since 1957 it has been called
Akashvani. Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and complete broadcasting followed in 1965. The
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatus—including the television channel
Doordarshan—in the country prior to the
economic reforms of 1991. In 1997, an autonomous body was established in the name of
Prasar Bharti to take care of the public service broadcasting under the Prasar Bharti Act. All India Radio and Doordarshan, which earlier were working as media units under the Ministry of I&B became constituents of the body. Sam Pitroda had a significant role as a consultant and adviser in the development of telecommunication in India. In 1985, the
Department of Telecom (DoT) was separated from Indian Post & Telecommunication Department. DoT was responsible for telecom services in entire country until 1986 when
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) were carved out of DoT to run the telecom services of metro cities (
Delhi and
Mumbai) and international long-distance operations respectively. Liberalisation in the basic telecom sector was also envisaged in this policy. They were also successful in establishing joint ventures between state owned telecom companies and international players. Foreign firms were eligible to 49% of the total stake. The multi-nationals were just involved in technology transfer, and not policy making. During this period, the World Bank and
ITU had advised the Indian Government to liberalise long-distance services to release the monopoly of the state-owned DoT and VSNL and to enable competition in the long-distance carrier business which would help reduce tariff's and better the economy of the country. The Rao run government instead liberalised the local services, taking the opposite political parties into confidence and assuring foreign involvement in the long-distance business after 5 years. The country was divided into 20 telecommunication circles for basic telephony and 18 circles for mobile services. These circles were divided into category A, B and C depending on the value of the revenue in each circle. The government threw open the bids to one private company per circle along with government-owned DoT per circle. For cellular service two service providers were allowed per circle and a 15 years licence was given to each provider. During all these improvements, the government did face oppositions from
ITI, DoT, MTNL, VSNL and other labour unions, but they managed to keep away from all the hurdles. The primary objective of TDSAT's establishment was to release TRAI from adjudicatory and dispute settlement functions in order to strengthen the regulatory framework. Any dispute involving parties like licensor, licensee, service provider and consumers are resolved by TDSAT. Moreover, any direction, order or decision of TRAI can be challenged by appealing in TDSAT. The government corporatised the operations wing of DoT on 1 October 2000 and named it as
Department of Telecommunication Services (DTS) which was later named as
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The proposal of raising the stake of foreign investors from 49% to 74% was rejected by the opposite political parties and leftist thinkers. Domestic business groups wanted the government to privatise VSNL. Finally in April 2002, the government decided to cut its stake of 53% to 26% in VSNL and to throw it open for sale to private enterprises. TATA finally took 25% stake in VSNL. Many private operators, such as
Reliance Communications,
Jio,
Tata Indicom,
Vodafone,
Loop Mobile,
Airtel,
Idea etc., successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market. In the initial 5–6 years the average monthly subscribers additions were around 0.05 to 0.1 million only and the total mobile subscribers base in December 2002 stood at 10.5 million. However, after a number of proactive initiatives taken by regulators and licensors, the total number of mobile subscribers has increased rapidly to over 929 million subscribers as of May 2012. In March 2008, the total
GSM and
CDMA mobile subscriber base in the country was 375 million, which represented a nearly 50% growth when compared with previous year. As the unbranded Chinese cell phones which do not have
International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers pose a serious security risk to the country,
Mobile network operators therefore suspended the usage of around 30 million mobile phones (about 8% of all mobiles in the country) by 30 April 2009. Phones without valid IMEI cannot be connected to cellular operators. India has opted for the use of both the
GSM (global system for mobile communications) and
CDMA (code-division multiple access) technologies in the
mobile sector. In addition to
landline and mobile phones, some of the companies also provide the
WLL service. The mobile tariffs in India have also become the lowest in the world. A new mobile connection can be activated with a monthly commitment of US$0.15 only. Decentralisation has been the new push by the government through PM WANI scheme launched in Dec 2020 to push Internet penetration above the current 50% threshold into smaller towns and villages. This opens up opportunities for multiple small and medium scale local business models as well as decentralized solutions using
Blockchain.
Licence cancellation On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on petitions filed by
Subramanian Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by
Prashant Bhushan, challenging the 2008 allotment of 2G licenses, and described the allocation of 2G spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary". The bench of
GS Singhvi and
Asok Kumar Ganguly imposed a fine of on Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservices and a fine on
Loop Telecom,
S Tel, Allianz Infratech and
Sistema Shyam Tele Services. According to the ruling the then granted licences would remain in place for four months, after which time the government would reissue the licences.
Consolidation Post starting of the commercial operation of
Reliance Jio in September 2016, the telecom market saw a huge change in terms of falling tariff rates and reduction of data charges, which changed the economics for some of the telecom players. This resulted in exit of many smaller players from the market. Players like Videocon and Systema sold their spectrum under spectrum trading agreements to Airtel and RCOM respectively in Q4 2016. On 23 February 2017,
Telenor India announced that
Bharti Airtel will take over all its business and assets in India and deal will be completed in 12 months timeframe. On 14 May 2018,
Department of Telecom approved the merger of
Telenor India with Bharti Airtel paving the way for final commercial closing of the merger between the two companies.
Telenor India has been acquired by Airtel almost without any cost. On 12 October 2017,
Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire the consumer mobile businesses of
Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharastra Ltd (TTML) in a debt-free cash-free deal. The deal was essentially free for
Airtel which incurred TTSL's unpaid spectrum payment liability. TTSL will continue to operate its enterprise, fixed line and broadband businesses and its stake in tower company Viom Networks. The consumer mobile businesses of Tata Docomo, Tata Teleservices (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML) have been merged into
Bharti Airtel from 1 July 2019
Reliance Communications had to shut down its
2G and
3G services including all voice services and only offer
4G data services from 29 December 2017, as a result of debt and a failed merger with
Aircel. Surprisingly, the shut down was shortly after completion of acquisition of
MTS India on 31 October 2017. In February 2019, the company filed for bankruptcy as it was unable to sell assets to repay its debt. It has an estimated debt of ₹ 57,383 crore against assets worth ₹18,000 crore.
Aircel shut down its operations in unprofitable circles including, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (West) from 30 January 2018. Aircel along with its units - Aircel Cellular and Dishnet Wireless - on 1 March 2018, filed for bankruptcy in the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai due to huge competition and high levels of debt. Vodafone and Idea Cellular completed their merger on 31 August 2018, and the merged entity is renamed to
Vi. The merger created the largest telecom company in India by subscribers and by revenue, == Wireless operators ==