Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday pitched for using the USO Fund to subsidise smartphones for select groups to help penetrate the digital revolution and said India should make the rollout of 5G or the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks a national priority.
As much as 5 per cent of the licence fee paid by telecom operators goes to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, which was set up in April 2002 for achieving universal service objectives by providing access to telephone services in rural and remote areas and creation of infrastructure for mobile services and broadband in these areas.
However, according to the CAG, less than half of the funds so collected are transferred for the said purpose.
Speaking at the India Mobile Congress, Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said India must complete the migration from 2G to 4G to 5G at the earliest.
“To keep millions of Indians at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid confined to 2G is to deprive them of the benefits of the digital revolution,” he said. “Roll-out of 5G should be India’s national priority.”
His group’s telecom arm, Jio, which supercharged internet adoption by helping crash data prices since launch in 2016, is focused on 4G and 5G execution and broadband infrastructure expansion.
While 4G and 5G networks require smartphones, an estimated 28 crore mobile phone users in India still use basic or feature phones. For them, even the entry-level smartphone is costly.
And mindful of that, Ambani said affordability has been a critical driver of the phenomenally rapid expansion of the mobile subscriber base in India.
“India should move towards greater digital inclusion, and not greater digital exclusion,” he said. “When we talk of affordability in the policy context, we only think of affordability of services.”
India, he said, needs to ensure affordability not only of services but also of devices and applications.
“The best way of ensuring comprehensive affordability is nimble adoption of futuristic technologies and supportive policy tools like the use of the USO fund for purposes other than services. USO fund can be used to subsidise devices to select target groups,” he said. In a report presented to Parliament last week, Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said against the total collection of Rs 7,961.53 crore in 2019-20, only Rs 2,926 crore was transferred to the USO Fund.
Ambani said Jio has developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution that is fully cloud-native and digitally managed.
Because of its converged, future-proof architecture, Jio’s network could be quickly and seamlessly upgraded from 4G to 5…….