Opening up of the national long distance (NLD) sector to the private sector without any restrictions on the number of operators, migration package to revenue sharing for both basic and cellular operators, induction of the fourth cellular operator in both the circles, permitting limited mobility, and ending VSNL monopoly on ISD by March '02, the Survey said.

Corporatisation of the Department of Telecom Services into Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to ensure a level playing field between the government and private operators has also helped the DoT to shed the direct responsibility of service providing functions and devote greater attention to urgent issues facing the sector as a whole, the Survey said.

The DoT is now left with the functions of policy formulation, licensing, wireless spectrum management, administrative monitoring of PSUs, R&D and standardisation, validation of equipment, etc.

As per the Survey, the combined telecom network of PSUs - BSNL and MTNL - is one of the largest telecom networks in Asia. About 4.9 million new connections were provided during 1999-00, taking up the total number of working connections to 28.4 million lines. Since December 1995, 34 licences for 18 territorial circles issued to 14 companies. The number of cellular subscribers has doubled to 2.6 million in September 2000, against the 1.4-million in the previous year. Now BSNL and MTNL have also entered the cellular market.

Tariff re-balancing in STD and ISD rates have brought in greater efficiency, even though it brought the revenue streams under pressure, said the Survey, adding in the first phase of rebalancing done on May 1, 1999, STD and ISD tariff were reduced by about 23 per cent.

In the second phase of tariff rebalancing, with effect from October 1, 00, they came down further by an average of 13 per cent for different distance slabs and ISD rates by 17 per cent, said the Survey. Meanwhile, during 99-00 the equipment production has gone up to Rs 10,760 crore from Rs 10,000 crore in the previous year.

The telecom exports had subsequently increased to Rs 3,747 crore in 99-00 against Rs 2,909 crore in 1998-99. Apart from this, of the total 6 lakh villages, 3.8 lakh villages are provided with public telephones by the end of October, 2000. During 1999-00, a total of 33,965 villages have been provided with telephones and during the current year, it is proposed to provide 1,00,000 VPTs.

As many as 436 ISP licenses were issued up to November last of which 50 ISPs have been given approval in principle for setting up of international gateways for the Internet using satellite as a medium.

Applications were also invited from the ISPs for setting up of submarine cable landing stations for international gateways.