Ashutosh Johri

My career in Telecommunications started along with the privatization of the Indian Telecom Industry in 1995. That year witnessed a lot of action with Licence bids for the circles where one company bid an astronomical 85,000 crores and were salvaged by a much debated ministerial decision to cap winners to 3 A&B circles and also allowing them to choose those circles. There was a lot of adventurism during those days, while HFCL looked to swoop down on the meatiest of licences Reliance only bid for the poorest of circles and won them at meagre bid values. Everyone was speculating which would be the route to maximum profitability. Some like Sterling & Essar adopted entirely different strategies playing the  role  of in-n-out investors.

Moving on I worked with Iridium India & Agrani in the field of Satellite Communications (GMPCS) and learnt how great technological ideas can fall prey to business infeasibilities. I ran a dot.com company in 1999-2000 and shifted to Ericsson after the bubble burst. Thereon I’ve had stints with IBM, Cisco & AT Kearney before I joined two of my long term mentors, friends philosophers & guides to utilise all these years of experience to consult companies on doing business in Indian Telecom which is undoubtedly the fastest growing sector in the fastest growing economy in the world. We called this consulting company ISON (a tribute to ‘I’BM & Erics’son’ the two companies that taught us a lot of what we know).

By & large during these 15 years I have seen telecom from various angles – Startup phases of operators, late entrants, regulatory decisions that fuelled growth, price wars, investments, mergers & demergers etc. I have also had the luck to play various roles, Project Management, VAS sales, IT Outsourcing practices, Data Network & NGN convergence, Strategic Consulting etc. Today when I look at the happenings in Indian Telecom from the eyes of these experiences I get pleasantly absorbed in contemplating the repercussions that decisions & events of today will have on the foreseeable future.

Telegyan is a blog to reflect these musings, conjectures, hypothesis & sometimes predictions that occupy my time. I hope to keep you engaged enough to not only read but also contribute to the development of this as a popular forum.

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