On the one hand, is the glory: A phone in every Indian hand with a massive subscriber base of 1,203.69 million. On the other hand, is the goriness of an unequal populace with more than 680 million people remaining offline across India (early 2024 numbers), making India “home to the world’s largest ‘unconnected’ population.” As the headline-making Mukesh-Musk squabble rages over mid-band satellite spectrum, which will putatively take the internet to every nook and cranny of India, I rue over the current state of service being provided by telephone providers.

Having terminated a longstanding one for non-performance; waiting in impotent rage for the second one to provide the promised quality of service to my connection and wondering if I should go to the third private operator instead because the public sector operator is allegedly on its way out (not withstanding government assurance to the contrary), I do a reality check on the great Indian telephone miracle that was encapsulated nearly two decades ago by a sadhu with matted locks, a kamandalu in one hand and a cellphone in the other and propped up by fabulous propaganda around digital India. A subscriber base of 1,203.69 million is massive indeed! So is the size of the Indian population; the world’s largest. To put matters in perspective, China hosts the largest connected population globally (1.09 billion internet users), almost 340 million more than India’s 751 million, to go by the lat est Digital 2024 Global Over view Report. The report also affirms that 76.4 per cent of China’s total population is now online, compared with just 52.4 per cent of the population in India, which makes India “home to the world’s largest ‘unconnected’ population.”

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More than 680 million people remained offline across India at the start of 2024. The magic wanes, a tad. The magic wanes a shade more when one considers the nature of the internet’s reach. The just released Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey (CAMS), by the National Statistical Office (NSO), says that less than onethird of Indians in the 15-29 age group (365 million) can “search the internet; send or receive an email and perform an online transaction.” At the national level, the share of young people who could do these three tasks stood at 28.5 per cent, with significant variation among states. No more than 49.8 per cent of the young can send or receive an email and an even lower 40.6 percent can do online banking transactions. So much for the state of digital literacy. Earlier, an Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)-Kantar study (2023) said that 45 percent of Indians did not access the internet, 23 per cent found it too difficult to use, 22 per cent were unaware of the benefits of the internet and 17 per cent found it too expensive. Truth to tell, these numbers do not lend credibility to the government’s plans for developing a secure and stable digital infrastructure for purposes of providing government services digitally and achieving universal digital literacy.

Even a sophisticated, urban Indian can only access poor service. This is not to ignore Indian telecom’s glory and greatness aspects that one can get off all state propaganda with confirmation from the ever-obliging IBEF (India Brand Equity Foundation). The sheer size of the Indian population makes it an influential player in the global market but is the industry truly serving its customers?

• In 2024, the Indian telephony market (comprising devices that enable voice communication, including smartphones, landline phones and feature phones) is projected to generate revenue of $47.2 billion, says Statista.

• The projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is 6.61 per cent with a per-person revenue of $32.96. Never mind that it is about a third of China’s $109.5 billion. • The average volume per person is projected to be 0.2 pieces in 2024, with a volume growth of 2.6 per cent forecast for 2025 though what “volume” precisely means is not explained. Statista adds that the volume of the telephony market is expected to reach 304.2 million pieces by 2029.

• The telecommunications market ~ comprising three basic sectors, telecom equipment being the largest, followed by telecom services and wireless communication ~ is valued at �3,000 billion ($35.9 billion), which ma kes it the second largest in the world. The projected CAGR is nearly 7-9 per cent by FY2024, says India Briefing.

• The data story is even more spectacular, with the TRAI placing the average wireless data usage per wireless data subscriber at 19.47 GB per month in December 2023 from 61.66 MB in March 2014. Contrast this spectacular story with the actual experience of the aam aadmi. The better-off urban users are plagued with routine call drops; poor connectivity, unsolicited commercial communications and the dangerously fake click baits that convert customers into potential victims with the AI-aided and abetted scams sullying the phonescape further. The questions to ask are:

• Where is the mismatch between the money invested and the returns?

• Where is the mismatch between the propaganda and the performance?

• Why have more than 680 million people remained offline across India at the start of 2024?

• Why is it that the TRAI is forced to crack down on telcos, issuing stringent quality of service standards from 1 October 2024? In essence, the TRAI has introduced financial penalties, mandated network performance disclosures, and increased compliance for better mobile and broadband services for consumers, amongst others. A recent LocalCircles survey has reported connectivity issues in 3G, 4G and 5G networks with 58 per cent of respondents facing disruptions multiple times every month. It is worthwhile to ask why an industry that everyone is so gungho about renders such unsatisfactory service. It is also important to ask, if it is all so hot and happening, why are the service providers, barring the deep-pocket, deeper influence JIO, wallowing in pools of red with humongous sums owed to the government.

Even Jio is now worried that the entry of the low-cost satellite service provider, Starlink, will erode its dominance. Data for 2021-22, shared by Minister of State for Telecom Devusinh Chauhan in the Lok Sabha, says that Vodafone Idea had a debt of Rs 1,91,073.9 crore, Airtel Rs 1,03,408.1 crore), Re – liance Jio Rs 42,486 crore), BSNL Rs 40,400.13 crore, Tata Teleservices Rs 20,162.04 crore and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited Rs 19,703.84 crore.

The Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA) projects the industry’s total debt at around �6.2-6.3 lakh crore as of 31 March 2025. Meanwhile, the bankruptcies and closures (especially post Jio, 2016) alone have meant huge NPAs with banks reportedly owed around $6 billion by some bankrupt telecom companies in 2020. Indeed, the telecom industry has been continuously tarred by low returns on capital employed (RoCE), “with consistently elevated debt and pressure on profit generation” to go by the ICRA report on the Indian Telecom industry in July 2024.

The ICRA partly attributes the elevated debt levels to the addition of deferred debt obligations stemming from Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) liabilities and the spectrum auctions of FY2022 and FY2023. External debt has moderated while the overall debt levels have remained unyielding at Rs 6.4 lakh crore in FY2024 though they are expected to marginally moderate. Meanwhile, rolling out 5G services has bled service providers and both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are suffering from low capacity utilisation and delayed monetisation, which have slowed the rollout. The focus is returning to 4G with none of the aggression around 5G.

(The writer is a veteran, Kolkata-based journalist)