Telecom Wars: The Race to Capture a Billion Voices - Hardcover

Gupta, Deepali

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 014346759X ISBN 13: 9780143467595

Publisher: India Viking, 2025

Synopsis

Today, mobile connections are so readily accessible that it is perhaps easy to forget the time when only the elite had access to a phone provided by the sole operator: the Government of India. It all changed in the early 1990s as liberalization stirred the Indian economy out of its decades of complacency.

The Telecom Wars begins its narration from those times, traversing the uncertain early years of the mobile phone industry. It is a vivid portrait of the fierce competition as Tata, Birla, Reliance, and Bharti bid to capture the lion’s share of India’s billion voices. As they did, India’s institutions to regulate and manage the sector also evolved—the ministry separated from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), and state-run operators MTNL and BSNL also joined the fray. Policy makers, entrepreneurs, and bureaucrats worked tirelessly to change India’s cellular topography.

Fast-paced and expertly written, veteran financial journalist Deepali Gupta’s account is both a comprehensive history and a work of great business insight.

About this title

About the Author

Deepali Gupta, former senior assistant editor at the Economic Times, has been a financial journalist for two decades, covering the economy and large corporate houses in India. Over the span of her career, she has worked with the Indian Express Group, Network18, Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.

Edition details

• Publisher: India Viking
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 014346759X
• ISBN 13: 9780143467595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 520