India's telecommunications market began to be liberalised in 1992, when the value-added services and metropolitan paging services markets were opened to competition. Since then, additional markets have been liberalised and the sector is now fully-open to competition. Nevertheless, the state-owned domestic fixed-line and domestic and international long-distance carriers have managed to maintain their dominance of the sector, partly due to their entrenched position, partly because they have been able to draw on vast amounts of finance, but mostly due to the complex regulatory regime and the ineffectiveness of the supposedly independent regulator to get tough with the incumbents. Until recently, India's volatile economic and political climates had also mitigated against many of the new entrants' success, but it should be noted that a number of Indian conglomerates are the driving forces behind most of the private operators that have been able to make headway.
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