OP-ED | TELECOM POLICY saurabhpant.comTRAI’s MVNO Inertia Is Costing India Billions — Saurabh Pant (2026) Page 1OP-ED | TELECOM POLICY | JUNE 2026TRAI’s MVNO Inertia Is Costing IndiaBillionsBy Saurabh PantTelecom & Digital Infrastructure Leader | Denver, CO | saurabhpant.comIndia has the world’s second-largest mobile subscriber base. It has among the cheapestmobile data tariffs on the planet. It recently commissioned 97,500 indigenously built 4Gtowers under Atmanirbhar Bharat. And yet, in one critical dimension of telecom innovation,India remains invisible on the global map.Mobile Virtual Network Operators — MVNOs — are telecommunications companies that offermobile services without owning spectrum or physical network infrastructure. They purchasewholesale capacity from licensed operators and serve niche markets that large telcos cannotefficiently reach: farmers needing affordable IoT sensors, rural healthcare platforms requiringsecure connectivity, diaspora communities seeking better international rates, and enterprisesdemanding custom service levels.Globally, the MVNO market is a USD 94 billion industry. In India, it barely exists.”Every major market with a thriving MVNO ecosystem treatedMVNO entry as an administrative exercise, not a capitalinvestment. India has not.”Seventeen Years of WaitingThis is not a market failure. It is a regulatory one.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommended an MVNO licensing framework back inAugust 2008. The Department of Telecommunications acknowledged it, studied it — and neveracted on it. For seventeen years, the question of MVNO licensing in India has sat in administrativesuspension, while the global industry grew from a niche concept to a nearly hundred-billion-dollarmarket in which India has had almost no participation