Technological Competitiveness of Telecommunication Industry in India: Glimpse of Reality, Opportunities and Challenges

There has been unprecedented growth in the telecommunication sector in India in the new millennium. This boom has led to a revolution in the telecom service industry across the country and hefty gains are made by the telecom operators. With newer innovative services being launched by the operators continually, subscribers feel benefiting like never before. However, few seem aware about the flip side of imbalances in the trade, technology ownership, and overall competitiveness aspects. Despite the ambitious vision, significant technological and managerial capabilities in industrial houses, PSUs to SMEs and huge young skill base, the country seems be close to bottom levels in trade and technological competitiveness.

The paper aims to understand the problems in the Indian telecom sector about the lagging technological competitiveness and to find out whether the Indian telecom product development firms can leapfrog, though being latecomers. The causes of the low technological competitiveness of the Indian telecom product development firms emanate from the whole ecosystem of the Indian telecom sector consisting of the government, operating firms, industry associations, product development firms and the research and academic institutes. An effort has been made to identify the root cause of the problem supplemented by studying what has happened in a similar international scenario by taking a case of Huawei (China).