NEWS: ICT, Global: ICT can be the new telecoms sector, according to India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority Chairman Nripendra Misra. Phenomenal growth in ICT is possible and a key catalyst is the increasing important role of convergence.

Mr. Misra took the highly appropriate context of the Asia-Pacific Telecommunications (APT) and ICT Development Forum to explain his predictions, advising his audience never to under-estimate the sheer power of the ICT world. A second factor alongside convergence was the trend in ICT for demand to be created before supply was in place, hence the need for careful planning and a coherent strategy in infrastructure development.

ICT had to help people develop their potential; crucially for developing markets the present growth in the sector had yet to percolate to certain sections of society, "particularly poor and marginalised."

One supporter of the Chairman’s views is Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) Chairman and Managing Director A K Sinha: "ICT has done a great job in reshaping the world. Universal access to ICT is widely viewed as a key to economic prosperity. Communications now mean more than voice."

For Mr. Sinha the global trend is shifting from voice to non-voice applications, eg, e-services, value-added applications, broadband, data communications, and a host of content applications. "Everything is converging on internet protocol."

Regarding BSNL's own plans, Mr. Sinha said he planned to provide 2,000,000 and 800,000 Internet connections in the current fiscal year. Ten million telephone connections are also planned, including 1,000,000 in rural areas.

* One crucial challenge for Nripendra Misra was the fall-off in revenue for telecoms companies as tariffs fell - investment ran the risk of being squeezed. Despite this, infrastructure still had to be put in place. If not, there was the risk of repeating that situation whereby BSNL, while a pioneer in new technologies, had a waiting list of subscribers in several areas.