INTRODUCTION
Indian telecom is more than 160 years old, beginning with the commissioning of the first telegraph line between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour in 1839. In 1948, India had only 0.1 million telephone connections with a telephone density of about 0.02 telephone per hundred population. By June 2006 there were 153.42 million telephone (including cellular mobile) connections in the country with a telephone density of 13.96 telephones per hundred population.
The Telecom Commission, set up in April 1989, has the administrative and financial powers of the Government of India to deal with various aspects of telecommunications. The Commission and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are responsible, inter alia, for policy formulation, licensing, wireless spectrum management, administrative monitoring and control of the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) engaged in telecommunication services, research and development, and standardization/validation of equipment. In addition to the Telecom Commission, other Government organisations engaged in the telecom sector (as a part of DoT) are the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT), the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) and the Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) wing. CDOT was established with the objective of developing a new generation of digital switching items. It has developed a wide range of switching and transmission products both for rural and urban applications. TEC is devoted to product validation and standardization for user agencies. It also provides technical and engineering support to the Telecom Commission and the field units. The WPC wing deals with the policies of spectrum management, licensing, frequency assignments, international coordination for spectrum management and adminis ...