19. Coming to the assessment of dominant position, the Commission notes that after the opening up of telecommunication market to private players, this market has witnessed entry of a number of players competing with each other resulting in decrease of tariffs and constant improvements in quality and variety of services. As per the TRAI press release dated 17th February, 2017, the wireless subscriber base of private telecommunication players at pan-India level constitutes 91.09% as against 8.91% held by public sector undertakings. The market is led by the Informant with a market share of 23.5% followed by Vodafone (18.1%), Idea (16.9%), BSNL (8.6%), Aircel (8%), RCOM (7.6%), OP-2 (6.4%), Telenor (4.83%), Tata (4.70), Sistema (0.52%), MTNL (0.32%) and Quadrant (0.27%). Further, in none of the 22 telecommunication circles, the Opposite Party has a market share higher than 7%. As may be seen, the market is characterised by the presence of several players ranging from established foreign telecom operators to prominent domestic business houses like TATA. Many of these players are comparable in terms of economic resources, technical capabilities and access to capital. Further, the market is characterised by the presence of several players resulting in sufficient choice to consumers who can shift from one service provider to another and that too with ease. This implies that dependence of consumers on any single telecom operator is not of any significant extent. Against this background, it is difficult to construe dominant position being possessed by OP-2 with 6.4% market share, which presupposes an ability to operate independently of the market forces to affect its consumers or competitors.
