The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has activated India’s migration to the more advanced Next Generation (NextGen) networks, which are more cost-effective and efficient than today’s circuitry.

Within a week, the regulator will create a 30-member permanent expert committee that will speed up migration to NextGen networks before 2008, the earlier expected year of roll-out.

‘‘Nominations from industry and consumer bodies for membership to the expert committee have poured in and 30 people will be selected in a week,’’ a Trai official said. He said that a working group of the committee will consider the regulator’s consultation paper on NextGen networks, which was out this January.

In the past, Trai has set up only three other expert committees, which deal with the grey market channels, interconnection regime and Intelligent Networks. The NextGen Networks are expected to kick up a storm, since many operators will want to time their migration with third generation (3G) service roll-out.

The NextGen team at Trai will also write up a paper on the issue and circulate it among stakeholders. Until a conclusion is reached on the migration, the working group will deal with industry’s issues and concerns.

NextGen Networks will speed up today’s telecom circuits by replacing them with a technology that the Internet is based on, called the Internet Protocol (IP). Many elements of telecom networks for some operators are already based on IP, but significant cost savings can come from a complete migration.

‘‘NextGen is a migration of today’s networks to more modern systems. They improve efficiency, reduce errors and make the networks less expensive to run and more powerful,’’ said a Trai official.