The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) is a body aimed a protection the interests of telecom operators within the country, and it now has a new chairman in the form of Idea Cellular’s CEO Himanshu Kapania. The decision to appoint him for this post was taken at the association’s annual general meeting on Thursday.
Prior to Kapania, it was Marten Pieters the former CEO Vodafone India who was holding this position. But with Pieters also having stepped down from his role as the CEO of Vodafone India in January, it was sort of mandatory to elect a new chairman for COAI.
A spokesman of the telecom body has revealed to The Economic Times that while Kapania has been chosen to be the new COAI chairman for 2015-16, Mr Gopal Vittal of Bharti Airtel will be seen handling the vice-chairman’s post. It can be noted that Vittal was already handling this position, and has been re-elected by the association.
Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania has joined the COAI during tough times, even as issues like net neutrality are still hot topics in the telecom industry right now. Another recent problem is that of bill shocks which consumers are receiving due to data services being pre-activated on their new SIM cards.
Also Read: Net neutrality: COAI wants you to believe that 4 million Indians support it
It was only last month that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had asked carriers to consult customers in advance before activating data services. All major carriers except Vodafone India seem to have opposed the idea of deactivating the internet packs by default.
The new Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania indeed has a lot of issues to tackle right now with regards to COAI. So let’s see how he emerges during his planned one-year tenure.