Govt to legalise internet telephony

Govt to legalise internet telephony
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 10: Union Government is considering legalising Internet telephony in the country since it was felt that `sooner or later, it has to be legalised,' minister of state for communications, Tapan Sikdar, said on Thursday.

"Our ministry is fully aware of the pros and cons and the issue is being currently examined by the group on telecom and convergence," Sikdar told the `Third Telecom Summit' organised by the CII here.

He said Government has so far achieved high levels of telephone penentration through its various initiatives.

Unless the country has well developed infrastructure, "we will stand nowhere despite having one of the best available manpower resources in the world," he added.

Speaking at the summit, chairman and CEO of the Finnish mobile phone company Nokia, Jorma Ollila, said there would be 1 billion mobile phone users in the world by 2002, up from 480 million last month.

He predicted that the number of mobile phone handsets connected to the Internet would be more than thoseconnected to personal computers (PC) by 2003. "The future of technology will not be PC-centric, but will be mobile phone-centric," he added.

He said the motto of Nokia was to put Internet into everybody's pocket.

Secretaty general of International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Yoshio Utsumi, said this global body would become a forum for regulators and policy makers.

He lauded the efforts being taken by India in speeding up reforms in the telecom sector and spreading information technology in this part of the world.