A three day international workshop on “regulatory ramework for emerging telecom environment”, being jointly organised by telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) and Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT), began in the Capital on Tuesday.

Inaugurating the workshop Kapil Sibal, the union minister of communications and information technology said that India is at the cusp of another telecom revolution and needs a policy through which spectrum can be shared and technology neutral networks can be provided.

He said that telecom Industry needs to be consumer centric and should move in that direction. Telecom equipment manufacturing and content providing are the two areas with huge potential for the industry, the Minister added. The Minister hoped that a transparent and meaningful regulation will emerge protecting interests of all stakeholders without compromising the growth of the telecom sector.

Earlier addressing the gathering J S Sarma, chairman, TRAI said that about hundred delegates are representing about 25 countries in the workshop. The workshop will focus on analysing the emerging situation and defining the role of the regulator.

He said that the telecommunication has evolved from a simple voice communication to multi- media rich, bandwidth intensive applications over the years. The regulatory challenges that confront today include evolution and deployment of NGN, regulation of convergence etc.

The workshop has been organised by TRAI in collaboration with Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT).The issues to be deliberated during the workshop include emerging telecom environment, spectrum management, regulating emerging technologies, interconnection related issues, tariff regulation, quality of service for emerging technologies, international experience sharing-country presentation and other regulatory issues.