Global Telecom The Indian Way

On the right is a photo taken a few months ago by my cousin, who was an executive in the software industry in Mumbai for several years before moving into biopharma. It's almost too much for words, but it says everything about the reality of electrical, telecom and cellular infrastructure in India.

No entity controls the connections to the pole, and anyone is free to add theirs to the jumble, without any consideration for external effects on existing connections. The local utility doesn't care about this situation and has no power to enforce regulations anyway. Everyone shrugs their shoulders and life goes on, until the daily brownouts or a failure. When you hear about the need to invest in Indian infrastructure, this is an image to keep in mind.

A recent study by McKinsey estimates that by 2030 India will, for the first time in its history, pass from being a country of villages to the majority of its citizens being urbanized. Mumbai will have about 28 million inhabitants, Pune will have 6 million, and Chennai some 8 million. McKinsey estimates that $1.2 trillion will have to be spent on infrastructure alone by 2030 to accommodate the needs of the urban population throughout the country. Some big chunks in their calculation are water and sewers, the latter being something that never receives public investment to any meaningful degree. Roads, trains and subways are critical investments also. $120 billion is required on an annual basis, according to McKinsey. They size this by saying that it's equivalent to adding infrastructure for a city the size of Chicago every year for twenty years.

Now if something like this were done, there would be tremendous export potential for US companies, since the materials and services requirements would be beyond domestic capabilities. Of course, India would have to export more in order to pay for this effort, but these are the kinds of things that should be the subject of Indo-American dialogue, not just selling more fighter planes and arms to the Indian government.