The policy that the Indian government has released on Virtual Network Operators, which allow any company to tie up with telecom operators to provide their own Internet and Mobile services, is essentially dead-on-arrival. This is because the policy, based on TRAI's pro-telecom-operator recommendations, places significant restrictions on the virtual network operator. The issue is that the guidelines limit the VNO's to the role of a mere reseller: The guidelines allow telecom operators to tie up with as many VNOs as they want, but VNOs are forced to stick to one telecom operator for one service, according to the Department of Telecom guidelines. This is not very different from the 2008 situation. The numbering is also from one unique parent operator, and not the one issued by the VNO independently. Why this is a problem? With the current policy, if a Snapdeal wants become a VNO, it can tie up with different telecom operators to provide each of phone calling, data and international calling: they can create a package where they can give data from an Airtel, phone calling from Idea Cellular and VAS from Tata Docomo. However, it can't tie up with multiple operators for the same service: give data from Airtel where Airtel has the network, from Idea and Vodafone, where their network is better. A VNO needs flexibility in telecom operator partnerships for many reasons: Firstly, it needs to have better bargaining powers with a telecom operator, to ensure viability and have the ability to switch from one operator to the other for the same service, or offset…
