Telecom Shotguns

When we talk telecom, we hem and haw about rising zeros in debt figures and liabilities. We all forget the investors, hapless casualties of this ‘sunrise sector'

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that simply won't work.”

- Thomas A Edison

The powers that be seem to have done a number on the Indian telecom industry. Or, as Edison said when his light bulb went ka-boom for the umpteenth time, “10,000 ways that just won't work”. How else does anyone explain the conundrum being faced by even those telcos that downed shutters long back, and are part of Indian telecom's list of also-rans? The divorce is going badly for these erstwhile telcos, with alimony and settlement figures high enough to drive them batty and mentally blind.

To name just three operators to drive home this argument, there are Reliance Telecom, Tata Group (telecom) and Aircel. The three former telcos have been told recently through a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court that they owe Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues of Rs 25,199 crore, Rs 16,798 crore and Rs 12,389 crore, respectively, to the Department of Telecommunications; the total for just these three is Rs 54,386 crore. Throw in the AGR dues of still-functional telcos Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea – Rs 43,980 crore and Rs 58,254 crore, respectively – and preliminary figures peg the total at Rs 1,56,620 crore. Whew.

This debate today, though, is not about a vision-fuzzing trail of zeros, with a few digits thrown in ahead, owed by telcos to the licensing authority. Hence, let's not hem and haw about AGR dues, or other debt and liabilities figures. Let's talk of investors large and small, the hapless casualties of this ‘sunrise sector’, for whom the number of zeroes in their investment and earnings reports figure has disappeared alarmingly and come close to zilch, nought, zip, nil…

Indian telecom companies kept cutting billing rates while incurring greater costs, defying the basics of economics