The fully business-class airline is to commence services to 35 more cities, increasing its domestic routes to 50 by the end of 2010. Delhi is one of the new planned destinations, so are Imphal, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Bhopal, Nagpur, Porbander and other places in Gujarat. This is in addition to the earlier announced plans of launching services to Kolkata, Guwahati and Agartala, connecting these to the south Indian cities of Chennai, Coimbatore and Kochi.
GSM mobile service providers are opposing an 11-digit mobile numbering proposal on grounds that it would inconvenience the country's 390 million subscribers. They are also seeking to end the exclusive two-digit operator code provided to three service providers.
The mobile tariffs in the world's cheapest telecom market are set to fall further by at least 20-25 per cent during the year, more so due to increasing number of telecom operators and infrastructure overcapacity.
TCS had dropped plans to boost its headcount in Australia even though it recorded double-digit revenue growth, according to reports and blog posts from the country. The Tata group company employed around 950 people in Australia at the end of the previous year, but around 50 have since been relocated to India. This puts TCS' total employee base in that country at around 900, reports say.
IMI is close to launching a programme - Music Mobile Exchange (MMX) - mainly to curb mobile chip piracy which refers to downloading music from the web or illegally copying it from cassettes or CDs and then transferring it to mobile phones.
At a time the industry is slashing headcount, citing the downturn, direct-to-home (DTH) television service providers are adding employees.
The only hope for WiMax operations in South Asia will be India, according to the Yankee Group, since even in countries like the US and other advanced nations, the technology "cannot be rated as successful".
Firming up their rollout plans, the new telecom licensees will invest around $2 billion in the next four months for the rollout of their services.
New services will bring the IPL to mobile phone screens.
The initial euphoria over reduction in mobile termination charges (MTC) seems to be dying down, with telecom service providers now alleging that the process is completely "flawed".
But half the 'profit' should be ploughed back into the company, says Trai.
CDMA operators are launching services that offer speeds of up to 3.1 mbps. On a comparative basis, this is faster by over 20 times than the existing wireless broadband connections, and 10 times faster than average broadband connections in the country. However, the upload and download speeds do not match the advertised speeds, which can be misleading for users.
Customs officials have been directed to stop shipments of such phones. Industry experts expect the move to hit the sales of dual-SIM handsets, which are imported into the country by companies including Nokia, Samsung, Meridian Mobile and Spice. More importantly, this could also affect the plans to manufacture these handsets in the country. It is estimated that around 100,000 dual-SIM phones are sold in the country every month.
Murthy's life story is to be the content of a new comic to be brought out by Amar Chitra Katha, the popular comic book series, making him the first living person to be featured in the Amar Chitra Katha series, which mostly focuses on popular Indian myths and legends.ACK Media, the publisher, will follow this up with stories of famous personalities like cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and former Indian President and Bharat Ratna award winner, APJ Abdul Kalam.
A delay would also result in a loss of opportunity to add at least 10 million broadband customers per year, which would have helped increase broadband penetration. India had a total of 5.65 million broadband connections as on January 31, 2009, way below the 9-million subscriber target set by the DoT for 2007. The meagre growth -- the country is adding around 1 million subscribers per annum -- will make it difficult to meet the government's target of 20 million users by 2010.
Reliance Communications has decided to launch a call centre to help its subscribers locate a particular destination. It will give information on the shortest route to a destination, important places to visit while travelling to another city, location of theatres, hospitals and ATMs. The information, if required, will also be texted to user. The service, currently in its pilot phase, will be launched across the country within a fortnight.
Netcore offers the service 'MyToday' to 3.8 million mobile phone users in the country. Jain was the founder of IndiaWorld Communications, a small start-up, which was acquired in 1999 by IT major Sify Technologies for around Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).
Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group-controlled BIG TV has withdrawn from partnering the Indian Premier League, alleging discrimination by the league's broadcast rights-holder Sony Entertainment Television.BIG TV has communicated its decision to IPL CEO Sundar Raman, alleging that SET has decided to offer the contract to competitor Airtel DTH, though it quoted a lower price for on-air partnership, sources said. When contacted, a BIG TV spokesperson declined to comment.
With the existing operators garnering the high-average revenue per user subscriber, new service providers like RCom has to look at new customers," Gartner principal research analyst Naresh Singh said.
The government has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to speed up its responses on the allegations that Reliance Communications (RCom) has violated revenue reporting norms. The government will also appoint a special auditor to scrutinise RCom's books.