Naveen Kulkarni, Head of Research at Reliance Securities , says it would probably take two to three years for the telecom industry to return to a situation where it can deliver meaningful numbers. In an interview with ETNow, he said Vodafone Idea has an arduous path ahead, given the many hurdles it faces. Edited excerpts:-The tariff hike in the first round could be higher, probably more than 20 per cent, because that window is there. They would want to raise tariffs as quickly and as much as possible in this round itself. Thereafter, we will have to wait and watch what happens to the sustainability of these tariffs.As for profitability, we have to take into account if the telecom companies have to pay the AGR dues in two months. If they do, then interest cost will start accruing to these companies and a 20-25% tariff hike is not going to be sufficient to completely offset the incremental cost they are going to face. In the case of Vodafone-Idea, it will take a much bigger hit. From an overall perspective, tariffs need to go much higher from where they are right now, probably 50 per cent or so, for the industry to start delivering meaningful numbers.At this point, we will have to wait and see what happens.If I were to go back to 2014-15 kind of timeframe, Bharti had an Arpu of around Rs 200. It was the market leader then; other players would have been at a discount of around 10% odd.My sense is, in two years the Arpu number should go back to a Rs 200 kind of level for the industry size to be meaningful. At this point, the industry size is not very conducive for all the three players to make money. When their Arpu levels hit a Rs 200-plus kind of number, at that point we could be looking at annual revenues exceeding Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh crore, and that is when the industry could start making some meaningful returns. It is still going to be a challenge to reach that number, but that is where we will start seeing some semblance of the profits and return ratios required for the investment that the industry has already taken.At this point, the tariff hike would provide some breather for Vodafone-Idea, and that is one way to look at it. As such, Vodafone-Idea has had integration issues. The kind of synergies and other things they had talked about have not materialised to the fullest. So it will take some more time for them to get their act together. There are intrinsic challenges as well, as the external environment has been extremely harsh. So my perspective for Vodafone-Idea is that it has some breather at this point, but if it has to pay the AGR dues immediately, it is going to be very difficult to raise that money. I am not sure if any bank will lend to them at this point. It is probably the government which will have to make some adjustments for Vodafone-Idea the way it has done for spectrum payments. It will take some time for Vodafone-Idea to actually come back on a strong footing.It should, in a couple of years probably. The critical factor is that the industry size should grow, because there is a big mismatch between the price and value of the offerings the telecom companies have: the value offered is much higher for the price they charge. From that perspective, there is a huge scope for prices to go up from current levels. Once that happens, and also once prices go up, product qualities will also improve and customers will see more value in them. From that perspective, we expect it can gain past glory, but of course that will be a challenge because there are multiple factors at play. There are pending dues to the government and there is significant competition. These are the hurdles the industry has to cross. We are probably closer to that timeframe than we were earlier. We could be looking at a scenario probably one-and-a-half years from now where the industry can deliver a secular growth the way it had delivered between 2004 and, say, 2008-10.