Keeping convergence and business maneuverability in mind, a single licence for a cross-section of services and the opening up of the long-distance segment to private cellular and basic providers will go a long way in giving a boost to the industry, MacMahon felt.

Advocating a clear demarcation of the roles of the regulator, licencee and the service providers, MacMahon said he had been in touch with the Trai and DoT on issues concerning the deregulation of the market. In his meeting with seniorofficials, he said he had stressed upon the need for giving more power to TRAI.

Drawing parallels with the UK, MacMahon pointed out that ``a strong regulator existed from day one and did not function for creating a level-playing field, but to give an upper hand to the competition vis-a-vis us''.

``What India is facing is not too different from most countries when they opened the sector for private participation. I have seen similar situations exist in many countries. But they were quick to correct and retrace any steps that needed to be reviewed and capitalise on that,'' he said.

He also stressed upon the need to merge the Indian Telegraph Act and Trai Act to draft a singular act, and felt that there was nothing wrong in recasting the regulations as and when required.

``A very common experience in most countries has been that the telecom acts are put out hastily and amended within five years. Nothing wrong with that as you need to recast the act to account for changes in technology as well as learnfrom the past mistakes in privatisation,'' he said.

However, the Indian government should act fast to clear the existing muddle in cellular and basic telephony if it wants to provide an impetus to growth, or else you will see a flight of foreign direct investment away from the country to other destinations, MacMahon felt.

BT, he said, was eager to make substantial investments in India provided the telecom sector was provided incentives for growth and was eagerly awaiting the outcome of the present exercise to frame a new policy framework.

India, he added, could avoid the typical pitfalls which were faced by the UK and learn from those experiences as most of the problems dogging the sector were not unique to the country.