Although cash-strapped Vodafone Idea needs huge investment and has to shore up capital, it has not been able to do so in the last two-three years, Bharti Enterprises' Chairperson Sunil Mittal told Moneycontrol on January 17 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Mittal, whose Bharti Enterprises owns telecom operator Bharti Airtel, also labelled a few Over the Top/Internet companies "guzzlers of network capacity", and said that such companies should shoulder some responsibility (in the form of fair share) for the strain on networks caused by their substantial bandwidth consumption.
When enquired about the Vodafone Idea situation , Mittal said, "So a lot of investment is required, and they need to shore up their capital base. They need to get some investors, they need to get some more debt."
"You need serious capital to be in this business. And that, sadly, has not been the case for the last two or three years... I wish them well, I've always said that with India's size of the market, the country should have three operators. But thankfully, BSNL is coming up!" he added.
Recently, the cash-strapped company failed to get funding from US’ International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) for the deployment of OpenRAN and related technologies for the 5G network, the telecom department has said in an internal report.
According to the report, the telco may face an annual regulatory liability of over Rs 30,000 crore after its four-year payment moratorium ends in FY26.
Meanwhile, Mittal was also asked about the fair share demand, which is being spearheaded by telcos as they highlight massive strain on their networks because of excessive bandwidth consumption.
Through this fair share demand, telecom companies want internet companies to pay them a network fee based on the traffic they generate, turnover threshold, number of users and so on.
"The large four, five big consumers of guzzlers of the network capacity, need to step up and contribute towards India's (network) burden," Mittal added.
He also dismissed claims that the fair share demand may go against the principle of net neutrality.
"There are some people who are mixed up. Nobody's saying fair share at the cost of net neutrality. Net Neutrality is a given on top of their fair share. That's got nothing to do with net neutrality," Mittal said.
Meanwhile, at World Economic Forum, Mittal also said that a third term for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government will be beneficial for the investor and business community in terms of "continuity" in infrastructure, ease of doing business and investments.
The chairperson of Bharti Enterprises also said that he plans to be present at the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. He termed the temple as a reflection of India's "goodness".
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