In an exclusive interview with ET Now, Sunil Mittal, Founder & Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, says, in a few weeks the point of interconnect issue will get settled. Already a few days back, Airtel tripled the capacity. Voda and Idea are also increasing their capacities, this will keep on happening. Edited excerpts





ET Now: To start on a lighter note, you seem pretty relaxed for someone whose obituary has been written by a section of the industry and some section of the media as well, you seem pretty relaxed.



Sunil Mittal: I do not know who you are talking about. I do not think anybody has written obituary. You can say there has been a big event in the market place but that anybody is writing us off would be in extreme position.



ET Now: Does this feel like déjà vu? You were there in 2001-2002 when Reliance made an entry into this sector and now there is another entry a comeback. Much has changed between then and now. They probably have more cash to play with, understanding of the market, you have grown phenomenally over the last 15-16 years as well. What is different? Were you more anxious then or are you more anxious now because stakes are higher?



Sunil Mittal: I stay calm. These are situations when one needs to deal with the outcomes in a very calm manner. You are right. In 2002, there was a big launch at that time and we were a much smaller company. We were still learning the tricks of the trade here. I mean this is unique industry in itself.



The customer demands are always rising and you have to play the catchup and ensure that you do the best. Now I would say this was in the making for the last six years. I think what people are forgetting is it is not just suddenly come out of the blue. This was in the making.



In fact, I was rather surprised that it took six-and-a-half, nearly seven years and every time I would see Mukesh I would say come on now let us get this rolling because the overhang is worse than the launch and he would laugh and say as soon as we are ready, we will launch. So it is not a surprise in the market. This was in the making. I think the media all of you are enjoying it because it is in play now.



ET Now: In an interview to ET Now, about a month before a launch of Reliance Jio, Kumar Mangalam Birla made this point that he thinks the next two years are going to be very turbulent for Indian telecom. You have seen a fair amount of turbulence over the last 20 years. Would you agree with that? Is it looking very turbulent for the next two years?



Sunil Mittal: It is amazing how this industry has evolved in the last 22 years. Ever since I have been in this industry that has been from day one, we have seen too much turbulence. I mean it has been one turbulence after the other. I mean you look at 2001-2002 you spoke about. The pressures of a new technology, that was CDMA at that point in time when GSM was being written off.



Then, in 2010 crisis where 8-10 new licences were given out and the whole world tried to cave in. So there has been almost never a dull moment in this industry and it has been a noisy heavily fought out industry because when you have 12 operators killing for the same customer, it is bound to be noisy, it is bound to be interesting in that sense. So I would say this is one of the new cycles, a big launch has happened and you must give credit to Mukesh for this.



It is a grounds up first time anywhere in the world that somebody is coming from behind to build a new network. So I give him the credit of building new challenge in the market place. It will spur the market. It will evolve the ecosystem. In fact, every time I would meet him out, I would say come on let us launch this because that will accelerate the 4G process. I alone as Airtel have been leading the 4G charge for the last two years. It is hard. You need more players in the market to create the right ecosystem.



ET Now: But the scale and audacity of Reliance Jio’s launch surprised you, did you take that by surprise, did you find it to be as disruptive as it has been made out to be?



Sunil Mittal: No. We have been tracking this every day. They used a lot of towers. They have one of my subsea cables connecting India to Singapore that was the first deal we did with them. We sort of talked to each other. We were looking where the market development is. So Mukesh was very clear. I will not go circle by circle. I will not go territory by territory or even divide the country in three-four, I want one big India mega launch that is always known and I think that has been in the works for six-seven years and that is what took time and then there was 2300 spectrum, then they got into 1800, then 850 so all that took time. I do not think there was any surprise. If you are talking in specific terms about the tariffs, I think…



ET Now: Did that surprise you?



Sunil Mittal: No. I mean, the beauty of the tariffs is that they are trying to protect an ARPU and it is important that he has gone through a process where he wants straight away for you to focus on what you pay for a bucket not price per minute, not price per MB or GB. It is the bucket that he has created. Europe, US, Japan, Singapore all work in buckets. In fact, sometimes it surprises, you go out into the Indian market, people know the STD rates, the night rates, the SMS rates, their voice rates and the data rates. World over if you ask anybody on the street nobody knows it, all they know is I have this pack and I think that is where the market has moved on to. About a year back, we had a big pack and before they launch, about a month and a half ago we put another two medium sized packs and what they have done is they put out 10 packs out there. So. it is pretty much on expected lines.



ET Now: So it did not take you by surprise to that extent.



Sunil Mittal: No, no.



ET Now: During the launch of Reliance Jio Mr. Ambani emphatically stated that the era of paying for voice calls is over, is it?



Sunil Mittal: Well I think it is a matter of how you see it. Customers must pay for something and world over as I said in the US, Europe and all there are buckets in which you have certain amount of data put in, you can have night free data, you can have SMSs, messages and certain amount of voice minutes and India at 460-470 minutes a month of minutes of use is one of the highest usage in the world because for every call that you make, somebody on the other side needs to be happy to listen to what you want to say. So there is a limitation on that, unlike data which you can pump all day and night.

So from that point of view, my own view is as long as you can pick up a certain amount of ARPU you are okay. I mean go to the television industry; the DTH or the cable does anybody ask what is the ET Now subscription or Zee subscription or Sony subscription, nobody will even know it, they know they have packages. I have a bouquet of so many channels and I have HD channels and therefore the price is different, I think that is where decisively we are moving to.



If you were to say everything is free, data is free, voice is free, then I think we will be talking a different language or a different discussion today but to say I need money from you, today a customer pays Rs 160-170 that is an ARPU if that can actually go to 250 because of more data usage excellent but what you need to do for that is more spectrum and more networks.



ET Now: But the concern is currently about $20 billion of revenues comes from voice services and a little under $7 billion if I am not wrong, for the industry as a whole, comes from data so when a dominant player or a disruptive player comes and says voice calling is going to be made completely free the concern in the market is what does it do to incumbents for whom a large part of their revenue comes from voice services, this transition to another model how disruptive will it be for a company like Bharti?



Sunil Mittal: You can make it as disruptive as you want because in the end you want to play this game. T say neither I nor anybody else is going to make any margin in this game, that is one discussion. I do not think so the current discourse is around that. The voice plan is at Rs 149, the current average ARPUs are Rs 170-180. So if you want to play the free voice you need to pay Rs 149 a month but if you want to play a data game you need to pay Rs 499 for data and free voice. I am again coming back to it, these are buckets of plans now, it is not that you can use only voice and pay nothing, you do not have that option but if somebody chooses to do that tomorrow, then you are saying that we all want to take this industry down.



ET Now: You do not see that happening?



Sunil Mittal: It is not the plan.



ET Now: But where do you see voice going, do you see voice migrating to voice over IP or VoLTE which is obviously spectrally more efficient. Will Bharti make that transition as well over the next few weeks and months?



Sunil Mittal: First of all, you have to check your own usage pattern. I would encourage you to look at-- plot your last two years out and see how much you speak now, it is a declining curve. I speak much less and I can tell our children, next generation speak even less, nobody has the time to speak, they message, WhatsApp, Hike whatever they can do that is what they do, Facebook etc. Now voice has not seen growth in the last three or four years, it is pretty static, in fact in certain circles we see de-growth in urban markets. With this, you accelerate the data piece and perhaps accelerate the de-growth of voice and that is quite eminently possible.



Having said that, there are only 60 million odd 4G phones today in the country which are VoLTE enable, it is growing at 5-6 million a month so there will be a path where regular voice will start to go down and VoLTE and IP voice will start to go up and as operators whether it is us or Vodafone or Idea or Jio and eventually even BSNL will all need to put everything on the table. Currently we have to see pilot running on VoLTE, I believe the ecosystem is not fully ready and I am happy that Jio is going to create that ecosystem. The day we feel the need we press the button. We do not have the need because we have alternate mechanisms to carry on.



ET Now: How prepared are you to launch voice calling facilities on a VoLTE network,? Would you be targeting a launch by say three, four months or do you think it could take more time?



Sunil Mittal: No, no, it does not take much time. All I am saying is we are running three pilots already. For us to go commercially live we will see the amount of phones on the network and if it requires-- you must understand today I have for the last two years running 4G and we are running it very successfully, every time you pick up a 4G phone, you make a call, all you do is automatically it drops down to 3G and makes your call out and that is the beauty that we have, that we have a 4G, we have 3G and we have a fallback on 2G. So we can straddle the entire structure but the day there is a ecosystem which is well developed for VoLTE to move forward we will switch it off.



ET Now: You think it will take six months or more?



Sunil Mittal: It can take less if you want.



ET Now: It could take less. Would you also offer free voice calling at least in that VoLTE network of yours?



Sunil Mittal: No. Already there are two plans which we launched before Jio’s launch. I think people forget that. I think there was a Rs 1900 plan and a Rs 700 plan in which voice has been thrown in. So we have started to anticipate this particular move and started to do that.



ET Now: What about the so called bread and butter spectrum which is 2G spectrum? As India’s leading operator, will you lead the test of 2G spectrum or will you wait to see if the challenger can change customer behaviour as far as 2G is concerned, what will be your position on that?



Sunil Mittal: We will be open. Thankfully spectrum has become now technology agnostic. Today, we are running 2G 900 spectrum on 3G now in several markets – Mumbai, Karnataka, Calcutta, Punjab so you can actually… Idea is running it in Delhi. You can move 900 to 4G that is a sub-gigahertz band. So spectrum go across. So it is not that we have bought a 2G spectrum, you are stuck with it but there are 2G customers out there. Even today in a place like Delhi, about 30% to 33% traffic is on 2G on 2G so there is a still a large usage of that. Out of 150 million phones that have been shift in the year, about 70-80 million are still feature phones which are non-smart phones forget being 4G phones. So there is a market to be served there as well.

ET Now: So strictly picking, do you think 2G, 3G and 4G can co-exist simultaneously or do you think you might have to reaffirm some of this band width?



Sunil Mittal: It will co-exist for a period of time. Today US, Europe, Japan, Singapore, other leading markets, China all technologies are prevalent. The day the pendulum shifts more towards the 3G, 4G, some of the 2G spectrum will be re-formed and put into 3G, 4G.



ET Now: But on hindsight, do you feel exposed with your 3G bets because you bid aggressively for 3G bandwidth and you are probably the operator in India with the kind of 3G capacity that you have. Do you feel exposed with the 3G bets that you took a few years back?



Sunil Mittal: Not at all. In fact, Kerala is the only circle where we do not have 3G and we intent to fill that hole through either trading or auction which we will do in the coming days and months. So 3G is strong underlying layer. Singtel, Softbank, NTT Docomo, AT&T, everybody uses that layer, Vodafone. So that layer is very good and the day the phones are more into the 4G side, you move your 2100 spectrum from 3G into 4G. It is seamless movement.



ET Now: You spoke about the packet and said over a period of time, voice revenue will come down and data revenues will pick up but do you foresee a scenario where voice revenues shrink and data revenues do not offset that loss? Do you see that happening?



Sunil Mittal: No but then you are painting a scenario where you are saying the overall revenue pie will come down. I do not think so that will happen because we have seen continuously pricing of data coming down, continuously voice tariffs coming down but the overall pool of revenue has gone up between 8% and 12% year on year.



ET Now: So you think that trend will continue?



Sunil Mittal: I think so yes.



ET Now: What about data? I am sure you had a more granular look at the plan on offer and I am sure you have to move as well. How much of a scope is there for data tariffs to come down as an in for the industry as a whole given the kind of tariffs that will be announced?



Sunil Mittal: I am again going back to it. I think the period of tariff per minute, per MB, per GB is gone. You are into buckets now. How much can you stuff into those buckets you have to decide so you will start seeing, you fast forward six months, one year and you look back and you will be amazed five people were discussing unit costs. It will be buckets now.



ET Now: But for the end user, will what he is paying come down significantly, will the cost of experiencing data services be significantly lower than what is it right now?



Sunil Mittal: I think customers will end up paying more but they will consume significantly more data that is where it will end up.



ET Now: By when do we see Airtel because post the launch of Reliance Jio, we have not seen Airtel react immediately in terms of tweaking tariff plans and all. You did some in anticipation of the launch by when do we see you tweaking your existing plans, I know you are not going call it a tariff cut so to say because it is not but by when do we see Airtel moving on that direction?



Sunil Mittal: Well what do you cut to? It is a free period going on. I mean there is nothing you can do about it. Let them carry on with what they are doing and I personally believe that the regulatory body must look into this whole thing of free period because you cannot respond to a offer which has got no pricing.



ET Now: So the earliest you can respond is after January which is when the commercially launched?



Sunil Mittal: I guess so. They claim to be commercially launched but yet it is free for four months and as I said how do you respond to that so you let this period pass through and I hope TRAI would look into this whole aspect of predatory pricing and we have already requested TRAI to look into it. But life goes on. I mean we are watching our trends every day and I can tell you we are holding our ground.



ET Now: I want to talk about price elasticity of data tariffs. You know you led the move to as far as voice tariffs are very price elastic and we saw volumes really spike. Do you see a similar trend in terms of incremental data usage as far as data services are concerned, how price elastic are data services?



Sunil Mittal: In the last four or six quarters I have seen a data slowdown and that has been reported very widely and we have done our research, went into rural areas, went into urban centres and as to why at early stage there is a slowdown of data. Two or three things are coming through; in the rural areas we are seeing internet literacy is an issue so I think programmes have to go out and create literacy around internet. There are some people who feel it is not relevant for them and third was a device price was seen as a barrier.



With all this new ecosystem developing and offers that are coming in the marketplace should stroke data consumption but if you look at the Indian pattern in the last two or three years it has moved from 100 kb to now getting to a GB per customer per month. Will this go to 4 GB, 6 GB, I think that will happen with the amount of data that is going to be put on offer with certain packets and buckets. My own view is that India will get to 4GB, 6GB but mind you that is a worldwide average high. Korea has about 7GB per customer per month, Germany has 3-3.5, most of Europe 3-3.5, US 3-4, so India may actually start to consume at those levels.



ET Now: But the key for that is also for the 4G ecosystem to develop in terms of handsets, you yourself spoke about the fact that there are very few 4G enabled handsets in the market, it is a fraction of 3G enabled or two. How much do you think it will take for this to develop, it will take a year or two or more?



Sunil Mittal: You know if we had alone in the 4G game this would have taken a lot longer so in that sense Jio’s entry is a welcome step because that will accelerate the 4G shipments in to India and lower price phones will come and our main requirement right from day one to now has been affordable devices, good affordable devices. And if you remember there was a big barrier in 2G and then finally at the GSM intervention we got a sub-$50 phone and that exploded the market. In 3G smartphones came down to 4000-5000 and now we are looking at 3000 or lower. And I think this will accelerate the whole process.

ET Now: Now I want to address the contentious issues. I need your comments on that as well. Firstly, at a broader level since you have been in the industry for 20 years, you have seen operators come and go over the years, we have not seen a situation like what we are seeing right now, the sort of divide between Reliance Jio on one side and the existing operators on the other, what is this ugly spat that we are seeing in the sector right now, is it to do with the nature of personalities, is it to do with the stakes involved, what is behind it?



Sunil Mittal: I think whenever such a large event happens and I have said this earlier, the Jio launch or in that sense the build up of Jio is a big even in the telecom industry and one cannot underestimate the size and scale of the launch. And the current issues of points of interconnect, porting and all are to my mind side shows and skirmishes which need to settle and will settle very quickly.



Point of interconnect is a right of every operator, must be given and taken by everyone, there is no question about that in my mind. In the last five, six years from 2010 we saw eight new operators come in, I do not think we have ever even heard a term point of interconnect, it was nonexistent.



The last time as the telecom secretary rightly pointed out was in the 1990s when the first time mobile operators came into being and they needed an interconnect with BSNL, MTNL that is the only time POIs were talked about. For all these 20 years we have not heard about POIs, people come take POIs and go and suddenly this has become an unnecessarily a big issue and I have told my teams, I have send messages to Mukesh and his team, let us sit down and resolve this, every passing day and every passing week this will get resolved. And I am not saying look out six months or one year, look out a few weeks this will get settled, I have no doubt about it, already few days back Airtel tripled the capacity, I heard Voda and Idea are also increasing their capacities, this will keep on happening.



ET Now: I do not want to make this he said, she said interview but I do want to get your thoughts on some of the issues that have been raised on the table because I am sure you would want to set the record straight as well so I hope you indulge me on this. You know Mr. Ambani on the day of the launch of Reliance Jio made a pointed comment on incumbents misusing their dominant position and creating entry barriers, the reference is obvious, how would you respond to that?



Sunil Mittal: So that is what I am saying . What can we create as an entry barrier? Fight well in the market place, we will. That is a given. I mean, everybody has to fight, Voda, Idea everybody else, everyday in the market. I assume that is not what he is not suggesting. So we are back to points of interconnect and I am telling you this will be non issue in the next few weeks, more and more points of interconnect are being opened up. You have to keep in mind 5th September was their commercial launch, today we are on the 20th of September, there have been 10 working days, there have been nearly 2000 POIs that have been provided and more are being provided so I think you cannot judge this industry in 10 daystime, the problem is in the media and in the letters exchanged and all that the temperatures are unnecessarily been taken up, I think we need to lower down, there needs to be dialogue, people need to sit together and I can assure through your medium that points of interconnect will never be an issue and should never be an issue.





ET Now: But would you say you were on the other side like you yourself pointed out in the mid-90s pushing for fair and equitable interconnection, would you say that incumbent players are being as proactive as they could on the issue of providing interconnection to Reliance Jio?



Sunil Mittal: I think first of all you have to go into the history of this. The launch is being touted to be happening for the last three years. It is happening. You yourself have said it is happening next month, it is happening three months later, happening six months later. The fact is it happened on the 30th of August when they announced that , 5th of September was the launch date. So it has been 10 working days since the launch. It is an all-India launch in one go. It is in size and scale which is very big. It is also a fact that the launch was with free voice and a fourth months of free. None of us can anticipate what is likely to happen with their launch. We have asymmetric traffic 10 times to one. We have to manage our own networks. We have to ensure that quality of service for my customers is not going down and you also need to know it is not just the point of interconnect or switch, every call that lands into our network which has to complete and come and talk to you for example goes to a full circuit of transmission, fibre or microwave into a switch through a radio back to your phone and you can either receive a call or make a call on the given capacity.



So it is absolutely, eminently appropriate that everybody balances that whole traffic. So the asymmetric or the large Tsunami of voice calls that came through did surprise us. Incidentally we did not see any congestion on the NLD which is national long distance into our fixed line networks because the traffic was lower. Mobile to mobile where there are radio network constraints, one had to calibrate and I think that is why probably the first few weeks you will hear this noise but increasingly it will go away.



ET Now: What we are told is that right now they claim that only a fourth of their capacity is being served ...



Sunil Mittal: That is because of traffic mismatch. Our view is that the amount of interconnects that we have given to them including the one which are under testing which will hopefully go live now tonight, whenever, this should take care of 15 million customers. I mean you should see the ratios that us and Voda, us and Idea or RComm or Aircel or Telenor or for that matter Tatas have, if you have to take that as an industry benchmark, based on that we have provision of 15 million customers. But again I am saying let us not make that as you said she said, he said, this will be resolved. I am saying message is points of interconnect is not something that anybody should abuse, misuse but pleas bear with us. It has been 10 working days. More interconnects will be provided.



ET Now: But you have also made this point, this statement just this Sunday that you believe some of those rhetoric is because there are technical issues on their network which can lead into call failures and they are trying to pass the blame on to incumbent operators like Airtel. Why did you….?



Sunil Mittal: Well I have not said it but…



ET Now: Bharti in the statement…



Sunil Mittal: I mean that statement has been made. All I am saying is when you are being pushed every day, you have just paid the money, you are starting to test and then you shoot out a letter, it is bound to create discourse which is not pleasant. We have to avoid it and therefore I am saying a dialogue is necessary. We need to sit on the table. We need to ensure that these small C category issues are sorted out and we should all focus in the market place. Fact is you have written and I say you as the media call drops have increased. I have nothing to do with their call drops. The issue is point of interconnect. If your call goes through, the POI is successful. After there is a call drop, it is nothing to do with POI. So I think people need to understand that I am only responsible for giving them a high quality interconnect which we are bound to, which we are obliged to and we will provide and therefore I am saying let us not start doing media war or a letter war, let us resolve this issue as fast as we can and I am again saying this will be a non-issue in the coming day.



ET Now: Would you be open to meeting Mukesh Ambani upfront and sorting these issues and other issues like number portability and all of that, would you be open to doing that?



Sunil Mittal: I meet Mukesh all the time. 10-12 days back we had a lovely lunch so it is not that we do not meet. I think the impression that is being created is that…



ET Now: You are at war…



Sunil Mittal: It is not true. Point is…



ET Now: Really?



Sunil Mittal: No absolutely not. We talk to each other. We visit each other. It is an absolutely wrong suggestion here and we did talk about all these issues and I am telling you again that these will be resolved.



ET Now: The other issue that issue that has been raised is on number portability. Could you set the record straight on porting subscribers because there is this perception that is being crated that Bharti is blocking subscribers to port from their network to other network, how many such instances have you received and have you denied them?



Sunil Mittal: Again I am saying this is again we need to get out of this small silly issues and start talking about what we are supposed to. Our prime minister’s vision of digital India I think that is where we need to move to. 69 people after this being launch as per their claim have desired to vote out. We will make this 69 people go and be on the Jio network and experience that, we have no difficulty with that. The porting request could only be taken up after the 5th of September and I can tell you thousands of people are ported out and tens of thousands are ported in and that is why Airtel continues to grow its market share and I really do not feel that 69 porting request which have gone into some hold up due to some reason I am not even aware of it, should be made a hero in our discussions.



ET Now: But it is just 69?



Sunil Mittal: That is what they have claimed, they said 69 people have been denied.



ET Now: At one level though are you pained by the kind of charges and counter charges that are flying around across the board, I mean, you have built this industry along with a few other players but you have been there since inflection are you pained by the kind of charges, about how the discourse has been lowered over the last couple of months, does it pain you?



Sunil Mittal: It does. It is quite unnecessary and whether it is the interaction between industry players and you must remember prior to Jio’s launch it is not that Idea, Vodafone and Airtel are letting any amount of pressure on each other to win in the marketplace, they fight for every customer in the marketplace. There is street battle every day and then there are others, Telenor, RCom, Aircel, Tata, BSNL, it is a real fight out there for the customers, but you do not see a situation like this which has developed in this round and this should settle very fast and I would therefore again say to all the industry players; sit on a table, let us discuss issues, get these C-class issues out of the way and move towards on consolidation in the industry, ensure that the regulatory regime enables everybody to grow in the marketplace because in the end the Digital India mission holds great promise for this nation. It can mitigate a lot of serious lack of infrastructure issues and I think we are all responsible players to move into that direction and that is why I am saying I hope in the coming days our discussions will be more to win the marketplace rather than having these small issues between us.



ET Now: But how will you resolve some of the worst structural issues because you have also sought government’s intervention and the sense one gets is that the government is not keen to intervene, they are saying it is between operators let them fight it out, regulator, I will come to that, that is a separate issue in itself but how will it be resolved do you think, will a dialogue between operators resolve?



Sunil Mittal: I think so. It has been the case in 22 years and for the next 22 years that is the only way to do it.



ET Now: And you are open to leading that dialogue?



Sunil Mittal: I do not get involved with it...



ET Now: I mean, Airtel?



Sunil Mittal: Yes, absolutely. I mean I would say there is no choice but to deal with all these issues through a collaborative, open and sincere dialogue with each other.



ET Now: In your two decades experience in this sector and you would agree with me there has never been a case where the entire industry or a large majority of this industry has come together and accused the regulator of blatant bias. What has precipitated this sort of a crisis for the industry to take such an extreme step?



Sunil Mittal: Well, I am certainly a believer of sobriety in public discourse whether it is our relationship with or interaction with the other operators or more importantly with the government and the organs of the government. And to my mind the industry must go into dialogue with the DoT, it must go into a dialogue with TRAI and whichever other government body that becomes relevant there should be a dialogue. That we will differ from time to time is a given that is why this industry also has a lot of litigation in the courts whether it is on AGR or other matters, the license fee etc, etc I mean, there will be differences but I have to say that sobriety must be maintained. All my life I have ensure that that is the case and whatever little I can do in this process I will do.



I meet the regulator from time to time, I meet the Department of Telecom, the minister from time to time and it has been our endeavour to ensure that we seek a level playing field, that we seek understanding of some of the issues that plague the industry whether it is availability of spectrum or high taxes or high charges, I think we need to bring sobriety. What has happened in the last few weeks needs to be put behind and we should absolutely look forward to a more engaged process between industry to industry and industry and government.



ET Now: But do you believe that the regulator is not creating a level playing field, that the level playing field is being distorted to benefit a new operator, by the regulator not by the government because I know you believe that the government has been fair but-- and by you I mean the industry as a whole the GSM industry, would you?



Sunil Mittal: I would say regulatory bodies receive a lot of inputs from each and every player and everybody has a different position, even between us, Voda and Idea, between us and Telenor, us and RCom there are different positions. Look at the case of IUC, there has been battles going on for years now, the termination rates have been lowered from 30 to 20 to 14 and these battles have been going on, litigations have been going on and the regulator will eventually put out a regulation after listening to all the sides. At times it does certain things which may not appeal to a section of the industry bodies and they will agitate against that, they will go to the courts and seek redressal or go to the ministry or wherever they can. So I do not think so too much should be read into this and I bring you back to the point that eventually there is no solution but to work closely with the regulatory bodies in ensuring that the larger agenda of a Digital India is met.