Impact of technological innovation on regulatory reforms : Case study of Indian telecom sector

During last two decades, Indian Telecom Sector has seen a major transformation from government monopoly regime to competitive environment. Subscriber base has grown manifold and India telecom sector become second largest in the world. All this could be possible because of evolving positive regulatory environment which helped in increasing the competition and reducing the tariff to enable common people to reap the benefit of mobile service. Since the start of liberalization process, telecom regulatory regime in India has evolved from restrictive service specific to technology neutral unified access licensing regime. Under this regime, all service providers are allowed to provide both basic as well mobile service without putting any restriction on the choice of technology unlike the initial situation of separate license for separate service and that too with the condition to use a particular technology. This research paper explores the factors responsible behind this evolution of telecom regulatory regime in India. It also studies about the role of technological innovations as well as various actors of the sector in this evolution process.