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It covers everything from voice calls, texting, email, images and video streaming.

The very fact that almost everybody owns a mobile phone now, along with the on-going digitisation of India, should give you the main reason as to why this is one of the best times to work in the telecom industry.

The telecommunications industry is made up of all telephone and internet service providers, which play a big role in improving our mobile communication. It covers everything from voice calls, texting, email, to images and video streaming. The rising growth of this field comes with the demand of skilled employees to facilitate this growth in the best possible manner.

India Today spoke to Santanu Bhattacharya, Vertical Anchor, Telecom, TISS SVE, on the growth of the telecommunications industry, job roles in demand now and employable skills.

Describe the state of the telecommunications industry and its growth process in India.

Santanu Bhattacharya: In the last two decades, the telecom industry in India has seen phenomenal growth. Between FY 07-16* India's telephone subscriber base expanded at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.5 per cent to 1,022.61 million and teledensity to 80.98 (ref. http://www.ibef.org). 

About the growth pattern:

This growth attributes to the penetration of mobile phones and services as well as internet (broadband) connectivity and services

This growth pattern and rate is poised to continue during the next couple of decades because of growth in smart phone sales, 3G and 4G services and rural penetration of telecom services

Telecommunications happens to be an industry where technology changes very rapidly making obsolete the older technologies which cannot provide new and essential as well as lifestyle type services (e.g. use of WhatsApp, banking services, mobile phone as a camera, etc.)

Consequently, the demand for skilled resources in every segment of the telecom industry has been and will continue to be much higher than what the current education or skill development system can supply

Positions and job roles in the telecommunications industry:

The job market in telecom industry can be divided to be in the functional areas and corresponding job roles or positions listed below. Each of these job roles requires specific skills to perform the functional activities:

Network Management Functional Area: Base Station Service Engineer, Core Network Engineer, Field Maintenance Engineer, Transmission Engineer, Optical Fibre Technician, Broadband Installation Engineer, Network Management Engineer, ICT Technician, Network Security Technician

Sales and Services Functional Area: Field Sales Executive, Customer Care Executive, Customer Relationship Executive, In-Store Promoter, Territory Sales Manager (Broadband), Territory Sales Manager (Mobile), Mobile Repair Technician, Repair Centre Customer Care Executive, Distributor Sales Representative

Applications Development Functional Area: Mobile Applications Developer, Games Developer, Handset Software Developer, Embedded Hardware Developer, Network Software Developer

Passive Infrastructure Related Functional Area: Tower Technician, Cluster In-charge, Cluster Manager, Broadband Technician, Radio Frequency Engineer, Tower Bay Installation Supervisor

Each of the above stated job roles are in high demand across the country.

Educational qualifications required:

The engineering and technician job roles require a 4-year degree in engineering or a polytechnic/ITI background with specific skills training

The sales and service jobs usually would require minimum of class 10 pass with specific skills training

Application and software development requirements may range from engineers to even drop outs with creative competence

Infrastructure segment profiles would hire even school drop outs with high degree of job specific skills

All job roles require a high level of soft skills, work place/environment orientation, work place safety and hygiene, adequate written and oral communication skills in a local language, knowledge of Hindi, and some proficiency in English

Skill gaps in telecom industry and how to bridge it:

Skills gaps are being seen in India in soft skills and computer usage across all functional areas and job roles

Short term skill training in specific job roles is the way to meet the demand at any point in time

A BVoc degree and one or two-year diploma programmes in specific functional areas along with adequate soft skill training are long term solutions