India´s ambitious ´Digital India´ programme could get derailed due to the financial challenges faced by telcos, apart from the low quantities of spectrum deployed for commercial use and the absence of a roadmap for releasing more airwaves, telcos and experts say. Mobile phone operators in India face multiple challenges – lowest spectrum holdings in the world and that too fragmented as it´s divided among 7-13 operators in a circle, apart from being non-continuous, which is a basic necessity for high-speed data services.
Additionally, the cost of bandwidth in India is almost the same as that for global operators, but the average revenue per user is far less as data and voice tariffs are far lower, thus hurting the rate of returns on investments, say analysts.
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