India, Japan collaborating on the telecom stage

Japan remains the foremost nation in the World as far as implementing the latest in telecom technologies is concerned, to the extent that NTT Docomo has been pushing forward with its plan to make the mobile phone a replacement for identity cards and credit cards.

In the short period over which private telecom operators have been allowed to operate mobile phone services in India, India has built up a decent leadership in implementing latest technologies in the telecom scene. The average mobile phone user in India expects far more from his/her phone than counterparts in a lot of richer countries that had gone mobile much earlier - a rare example of Govt policies having gone right in India. Then of course, India also does have the lowest cell phone tariffs in the world.

Considering this, it makes sense for the Indian Govt to push for some sort of collaboration with the Japanese telecom industry, and this certainly appears to be a move in the right direction.

However what is not clear are the implications of this statement: "Press reports said Japan and India wished to make Asia's information communications technology an international standard."

It must be noted that China's insistence on pushing ahead with its own CDMA standards has been behind the recent rush of handset manufacturers into India. Lets hope that there is no effort to change that.