Vodafone India calls for enabling laws to enhance connectivity

New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS) Vodafone India MD and CEO Sunil Sood on Thursday called for enabling laws that could facilitate faster erection of infrastructure to enhance connectivity.

"We are battling against all odds, we manage with municipalities, local governments, we manage to get some (optical) fibre, we manage to get some sites, we are struggling, and all operators are struggling," Sood said in his speech on "Shaping Digital Convergence" at India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2017 which is being held here.

"It doesn't matter if its Jio, Airtel or Vodafone, all operators are struggling... we need to get into the connectivity layer which is all pervasive in rural India as well as urban India. First thing we need is enabling laws, permissions and capability."

According to Sood, for development of smart cities in India, the government should consider to build roads with ducts that that can accommodate fibre cable to facilitate connectivity.

"I have a very basic solution which I keep telling the minister but none of them get it executed, I say that every road should have a duct and that's what everyone does globally. Today we talk about smart cities... but there is no fibre and there is no connectivity, without it nothing will work, so, let's get it right first," Sood elaborated.

"First we need is a connectivity layer... we need some enabling laws, so here is definition of what is a road, let road have duct and have fibre, let the duct have gas, that's (what) the global world is all about and unless we have these laws coming in, they will keep building in the same highways."

"If we start doing that, we start looking at the solutions which is convergence, and that will change the society, that will change the world," Sood explained.