Twilight of voice, dawn of data: the future of telecommunications in India

Abstract

These are exciting times for telecommunications in India. On the one hand, we have the entry of one of the largest business houses in India into the cellular mobile services market on a large scale, leading to increased competition as well as mergers and acquisitions. On the other, we see exciting new technologies being unveiled and we stand at a point in time where technologies such as internet of things, big data, cloud computing, 5G and artificial intelligence are starting to get deployed. Among other concerns, this has raised issues of privacy and net neutrality. We discuss all of these and other related matters. We also, provide a short history on telecommunications in India and discuss technological issues, manufacturing, infrastructure and market development. We end the paper with a set of policy recommendations.