1. Indian Telecom network is the third largest in the world on the basis of its customer base and 2.

it has one of the lowest tariffs 3. Major sectors of the Indian telecommunication industry are telephony, internet and broadcasting. 4. Telephonic network is in an ongoing process of converging to Next Generation Network 5. Employs an extensive system of network elements such as digital telephone exchanges,Mobile Switching Centers, Media gateways and Signalling gateways at the core 6. Interconnected by a wide variety of transmission systems using media such as Optical fiber or Microwave radio relay. 7. Telecommunication in India is assisted by the INSAT system 8. One of the largest domestic satellite systems in the world. India possesses a diversified communications system that link all parts of the country by telephone, Internet, radio, television and satellite 9. India has the world's second-largest mobile phone user base with over 929.37 million users as of May 2012.[2] It has the world's third-largest Internet user-base with over 121 million as of December 2011. HISTORY 10 started with the introduction of telegraph 11. In 1850, the first experimental electric telegraph line was started between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour for east india company ops. 12. Subsequently, the construction of 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of telegraph lines connecting Kolkata (then Calcutta) and Peshawar in the north along with Agra, Mumbai (then Bombay) through Sindwa Ghats, and Chennai (then Madras) in the south, as well as Ootacamund and Bangalore - in November 1853 13. In 1880, two telephone companies namely The Oriental Telephone Company Ltd. and The AngloIndian Telephone Company Ltd. 14. The permission was refused on the grounds that the establishment of telephones was a Government monopoly 15. 1881 granted to oriental coy. 16. On 28 January 1882, Major E. Baring, Member of the Governor General of India's Council
declared open the Telephone Exchanges in Kolkata, Bombay and Chennai. The exchange in Kolkata named the "Central Exchange" had a total of 93 subscribers in its early stage

Pre-1902 Cable telegraph 1902 First wireless telegraph station established between Sagar Island and Sandhead. 1907 First Central Battery of telephones introduced in Kanpur. 19131914 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. 1953 12 channel carrier system introduced. 1960 First subscriber trunk dialling route commissioned between Lucknow and Kanpur. 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 Program 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 Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Pune on 15 August 1995[12]

Development of Broadcasting 1. Radio broadcasting- was initiated in 1927 but became state responsibility only in 1930. 2. 1937 named- All India Radio 3. and since 1957 it has been called Akashvani. 4.1959- Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and complete broadcasting followed in 1965. 5. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatusincluding the television channel Doordarshanin the country prior to the economic reforms of 1991. 6. 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. 7. All India Radio and Doordarshan, which earlier were working as media units under the Ministry of I&B became constituents of the body. 8. Pre-liberalization statistics: While all the major cities and towns in the country were linked with telephones during the British period, the total number of telephones in 1948 numbered only around 80,000. 9. Post independence, growth remained slow because the telephone was seen more as a status symbol rather than being an instrument of utility. The number of telephones grew leisurely to 980,000 in 1971, 2.15 million in 1981 and 5.07 million in 1991, the year economic reforms were initiated in the country. 10. Liberalization and privatization Liberalization of Indian telecommunication industry started in 1981 11 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed contracts with Alcatel CIT of France to merge with the state owned Telecom Company (ITI), 12. in an effort to set up 5,000,000 lines per year. 13. But soon the policy was let down because of political opposition. [14] Attempts to liberalize the telecommunication industry were continued by the following government under the prime-minister-ship of Rajiv Gandhi. 15. He invited Sam Pitroda, a US based Non-resident Indian NRI and a former Rockwell International executive to set up a Center for Development of Telematics(C-DOT) 16. CDOT- manufactured electronic telephone exchanges in India for the first time. [15] Sam Pitroda had a significant role as a consultant and adviser in the development of telecommunication in India. 17. In 1985, the Department of Telecom(DoT) was separated from Indian Post & Telecommunication Department. 18. DoT was responsible for telecom services in entire country until 1986. 19. 1986- 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. 20. The demand for telephones was ever increasing and in 1990s Indian government was under increasing pressure to open up the telecom sector for private investment as a part of LiberalisationPrivatization-Globalization policies that the government had to accept to overcome the severe fiscal crisis and resultant balance of payments issue in 1991. Consequently, private investment in the sector of Value Added Services (VAS) was allowed and cellular telecom sector were opened up for competition from private investments. It was during this period that the Narsimha Rao-led government introduced the National Telecommunications policy (NTP) in 1994 which brought changes in the following areas: ownership, service and regulation of telecommunications infrastructure. The policy introduced the concept of telecommunication for all and it's vision was to expand the telecommunication facilities to all the villages in India.[17] Liberalization in the basic telecom sector was also envisaged in this policy.[18] 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.[14] 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 license 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.[14] In 1997, the government set up TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) which reduced the interference of Government in deciding tariffs and policy making. The political powers changed in 1999 and the new government under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee was more pro-reforms and introduced better liberalisation policies. 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 privatize 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.[14] This was a gateway to many foreign investors to get entry into the Indian Telecom Markets. After March 2000, the government became more liberal in making policies and issuing licenses to private operators. The government further reduced license fees for cellular service providers and increased the allowable stake to 74% for foreign companies. Because of all these factors, the service fees finally reduced and the call costs were cut greatly enabling every common middle-class family in India to afford a cell phone. Nearly 32 million handsets were sold in India. The data reveals the real potential for growth of the Indian mobile market.[19] Many private operators, such as Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, Loop Mobile, Airtel, Idea etc., successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market. 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.[20] 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 planned to suspend the usage of around 30 million mobile phones (about 8 % of all mobiles in the country) by 30 April.[21] 56 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 millions. 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. 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 lowest in the world. A new mobile connection can be activated with a monthly commitment of US$0.15 only. In 2005 alone additions increased to around 2 million per month in 200304 and 200405